New terminal station under development in Bangkok:https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/asia/single-view/view/four-storey-bangkok-bang-sue-station-takes-shape.html …
...also China's HSR is 100% tax financed and run by the government (well, by state-owned enterprises)
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Yes, state-owned company. But not run by or sustained by government. What PRC does - like any owner - is it gives the company the seed money, then company is expected to support itself financially. Also much if not all of that seed money came from the other SOEs, not tax money.
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For operations, maybe--but certainly not for construction of new lines
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Private companies built almost every mile of track in the US. When when Amtrak runs on them it’s like their throw money into the furnace.
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Yes, occasionally with free land etc from the gov, but they generally raised their own money. But that was when trains were the *only* way to go long distances at speed--it's much tougher to find investors for something like that now.
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Real estate acquisition is a marginal cost in rail construction. But those rails still exist. Amtrak doesn’t have to do a thing but lease or maintain them, and they can’t seem to do it.
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They're kind of crippled in the sort of service they can provide due to hostility from the freight railways that actually own and maintain the tracks--they tend to prioritize their own trains and are loathe to allow the sort of frequent service which makes passenger rail work
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That said, Amtrak is a terrible Frankenstein's monster of a company--they either need drastic overhaul or outright replacement. Most of the long-distance routes they run should probably drop their passenger service, but the senators from those states aren't fond of the idea
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If we want to study successful, profitable passenger rail, Japan is a great place to look--a lot of the railways there have been run by the same companies since their foundation (e.g. Iyotetsu). China is building a ton, but CR is currently losing money.pic.twitter.com/mInqBsRDZ7
End of conversation
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