Choo Choo Too

How did we get this way?  With freight trains?

Gah, it's been forever since I did any research on this.  Let me wing it.

1. As a commenter noticed, passenger fares NEVER made any money.  From 1825 to now.  You never wanted them, gov't interference forces it on the Railways.
2. A mixed system steps on each other's toes. Always.  
3. Both freight and passenger service was failing by the 60s.  See A Prayer for Owen Meany about this late stage failure.
4. All this led to company failures, to company consolidation, to RR assets getting bought up cheap by the few survivors.  With fewer players there was less competition and less overlap and it was cheap enough to CLOSE some lines.  Make the track mileage more efficient.  Less track meant less money spent on track maintenance.  But many areas were still being serviced.  By one or two companies instead of six.
5. Failure and consolidation meant the powerful RR unions had less clout, and their antiquate featherbedding work rules meant that you no longer were required to have a caboose with expensive signalman doing the work a single electronic signal box on the last car could do.
6. That leads to other technological advances.  Containerized sea freight meant more efficient loading and less spillage to stevedores and freightmen.  New cars that could haul 2 containers stacked and still make it under existing tunnels.  The retirement of high maintenance steam and replacing with low maintenance diesel locomotives...  All increased efficiencies and cut costs.
7. The gov't no longer requiring lines to have passenger service but took over that role themselves.  And the private sector lines had a bit more priority over public sector people movers.  A mile long freight train is most efficient by accelerating to 30 miles per hour and with good scheduling NEVER altering speed until approaching a destination.  It takes priority over a 70 mph Amtrak.  With double track, passenger and freight still can't really co-exist, still.  You'd need at least triple, and probably quadruple to make it work together.   

So there you have it.  Less labor/union costs, mostly by cutting 70 year old work rules that make no sense in 1975 and just fewer guys to fire, at this point.  Efficiency gains from technology.  Less maintenance cost from rolling stock and track.  And less scheduling conflicts because folks are shifting to cars and Pan Am and TWA and Eastern airlines to move themselves about.  Less 'toe stepping' by the half of the industry that never ever worked.  Passengers.  The only reason a train should hurry is because the tomatoes and avocados might over ripen.  

I see the appeal, the romance, of passenger rail.  It's just a HUGE pipe dream.  Unviable.  Like wind and solar electrical generation. If you want to ride the rails, be a hobo. 

One thing.  This 'greatest railway system on the planet, just for freight not stoopid people' all didn't happen overnight.  Took time.  While the dust settled, something had to cover the bases, and we got the romance of the 18 wheeler truck driver and their CB radios!

Another big plus?  You can't export internal supply delivery to the far east like you can electronics and steel and auto production.  So an industry can become a shambles and yet rise from the ashes, here, when you find it impossible to offshore it.