In this Rail Bite, Meredith Richards, who is chair of the Rail Passengers Association (RPA), articulates two principles that lie at the center of successful passenger rail systems everywhere.

First, that passenger rail is an economic engine. Using reports and modeling tools developed by or in partnership with other institutions, the RPA has demonstrated that passenger rail routes often catalyze economic development in the communities they service at a scale many times greater than the cost of providing the service.

And second, that the key to maximizing those benefits—as well as optimizing the number of tickets sold per train and therefore reducing reliance on operating subsidies—is to invest in a high level of service. As we learned from Tom White in Rail Bite #7, passenger rail service in the U.S. today is often so threadbare that it fails to provide a desirable alternative to driving or flying for many travelers.

Crucially, however, the way to improve service is not to focus on making a profit, but rather, well, to prioritize improving service—something Amtrak was not initially created to do. It is only through decades of hard experience that lawmakers in the U.S. have gradually amended Amtrak’s mandate to emphasize service over profitability. As we learned in Episode 2 of our main series, and from Maddock Thomas, the pursuit of profit in the passenger rail business leads, as a rule, to worse, rather than better service.

Our Rail Bites series presents you with some of our favorite clips from our amazing guests on Reconnect America. With Rail Bites, you can look forward to more frequent, shorter-form content in between our carefully crafted longer episodes.

Reconnect America is hosted by Bill Moyer, co-author of the book Solutionary Rail: A People-powered Campaign to Electrify America’s Railroads and Open Corridors to a Clean Energy Future. Check out the essays and supplemental posts that complement this podcast HERE.

Learn more, get involved and pitch in to support the work of Solutionary Rail at SolutionaryRail.org. Keep the podcast ads-free and without paywalls by making a tax-deductible donation HERE.