>>1208811Oil crisis
Basically, if there is an oil crisis and fuel prices go through the roof, the electrified lines, all 2 of them, will become far cheaper and people will use them more, at least on the East Coast.
As for the other Amtrak services, it's a lost cause really... Unless Amtrak gets billions of dollars to build 320+km/h track across the US from coast to coast, from border to border, there's not a hell of a lot that can be done about the fact that the lines through the Midwest are slow, and that you will be going overnight on these trains.
Amtrak isn't like the Russian Railways, well, actually that's hard comparison. The Russian Railways operates 5-7 day long train routes along the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the entirety of the Trans-Siberian is electrified. Add to that the fact that few Russians are really rich enough to fly a 7 hour flight from wherever to Moscow, and you have a well invested in railway.
Amtrak doesn't have the same distances to run on, but they have a worse problem, the fact that Amtrak doesn't own much infrastructure other than the NEC and that line to Pittsburgh. The rail freight companies on the other hand own the infrastructure Amtrak has to use, and they prioritise their slower frieght trains over passenger trains.
Meanwhile, the Russian Railways operates freight and passenger services on the same lines, but with the major difference being the fact that the Russian Railways operates both kinds of train, and they will prioritise passenger trains over freight.
I honestly think that the US and Canada's railways are doomed to a similar fate to that of Australia, where passenger rail was abandoned once airlines popped up in the 50s and 60s, and that beyond freight and connecting city clusters, long distance passenger rail is a dead thing.
