>>1469458I'm familiar with how shitty the US government is about running things, look at Amtrak, absolutely filled up with lazy officious bureaucratic worthless government workers who know they can basically never be fired. I'll pass.
> an elected state body can be held accountable"Accountability" is quite a meme in government. Politicians can be held accountable. Government departments are more or less untouchable by the public. There are a thousand more important issues to voters than trains in the first place. And there's inevitable mission creep/legislative bloat that every government agency deals with. A new nationalized system will start being seen as a cash cow by politicians and money will be siphoned off of it while at the same time a bunch of pointless expensive programs will be foisted upon it.
Plus, it will be diversity hire central.
>the cost cutting that leads to accidents, neglected infrastructure, and abandoned "unprofitable" passenger routesThe government can't keep roads maintained, don't see how private lines would be in any better shape under public control. We have barely any 'passenger routes' anyway.
In short even though there's room for improvement for US railroads, getting the government involved is something no one's going to be in favor of here because no one trusts the government to do shit correctly and in a cost-effective manner.
