People want to use trains and we want people to use trains -- which means whatever is left over is an irrelevant detail. We should subsidize it more and invest more.

I lived in the south of France for a while and it always struck me that instead of one huge, heavy engine pulling ten cars, arriving once an hour, along that stretch (from Cannes to Menton), it would be better served to have light, individual cars that ran every five minutes. (More like a large tram.)

We can do so much better. And it will happen the minute we get the greed of the oil/auto/airline industries from getting in our way.