Another way to look at the need for LD trains.
How about Amtrak as a national insurance?
Imagine another terrorist attack on air travel. It could happen, or why are our genitals studied when we pass thru security? If an armed vehicle breaks thru airport perimeter, or a flock of armed drones swoops in, and half a dozen airliners lined up for takeoff take off for Heaven, expect a change. Many people will refuse to fly; the economy will take a shock. Congress will call Boardman to testify and ask, "How much will it cost and how fast can you triple, quadruple, or more the nationwide Amtrak system?
To carry that sad fantasy another step, Amtrak is in far, far better shape to respond now than it was when Boardman took over: Already assembly plants are building new single-level bag cars, diners, and sleepers in Upstate New York and new electric locomotives in California, and are almost ready to build bi-level coaches in Illinois, new diesel locomotives also in Illinois, and soon, for All Aboard Florida, single-level cars in California. Factories have been built or expanded, managers and workers have gained experience, suppliers have been lined up. With very few tweaks to the designs, mostly from corridor car to LD configurations, we have, or will soon have, the capacity to build 200+ new cars a year, compared to zero (0) production capacity before the Stimulus. It would be easier to ramp up production from this new base than to start from the dead stop where we were just 6 years ago.
Some Stimulus investment in infrastructure will soon help in a few places, mostly in the Midwest, in Cali and Washington State, North Carolina and New England. That ain't much.
But apparently some planning work continues. If Congress made the work an urgent priority, more upgrades could be done or at least well begun within a few years: double-tracking most of the St Louis-Chicago corridor to double the frequencies, extending the Vermonter to Montreal, upgrading D.C.-Richmond, rebuilding the short cut Richmond-Petersburg-Raleigh, a handful more CREATE projects in Chicagoland, a Phase 2 for the Cascades Seattle-Portland and then 110-mph upgrades Portland-Eugene, the South of the Lake project to double capacity for the Michigan services and improve reliability and trip times for the Capitol and the Lake Shore Ltd., a new faster route Chicago-Quad Cities-Des Moines-Omaha, lots of little things on Cali's Capitol Corridor/Pacific Surfliner/San Joaquin/Coast Daylight/Coachella Valley/Redding routes, some new bridges on the NEC, and not to forget CAHSR (tho it is not necessarily to be an Amtrak-operated route). And a new fleet of faster, higher-capacity Acelas.
Of course, in the emotion of the moment, certain Senators would flipflop from being anti-Amtrak to demanding more of it. In a patriotic fervor, the Union Pacific would find a slot for a daily Sunset Limited, CSX would allow the Cardinal would go daily as well, and Norfolk Southern would somehow find a couple more slots for the Pennsylvanian to run Harrisburg-Pittsburgh and beyond. LOL. The Palmetto would revert to being the Silver Palm and run down the Florida East Coast to Miami. Trains would run again from New Orleans to Florida. Oklahoma City would connect to Wichita-Kansas City-Chicago.
These and other projects would take from months to years to come on line. Not a problem, since it would take a year or two to get enuff new equipment into the fleet to expand service. But taken together, these projects with 3- to 10-year outlooks could use $20 or $30 or $50 Billion and barely double, maybe, Amtrak's capacity.
Actually, if Congress asked Boardman to more than double Amtrak's capacity, he'd have to tell them, "We'll start now to double it. To triple it or more, we may not live long enuff to see that done."
But the current national system is at least insurance against a disaster; we can build up from what we've got if we have to. Our nation's "Amtrak insurance" would also pay off against a prolonged rise in oil prices, or from a political change decision to deal with the pollution that causes climate change. Pick one. Or pick two. It could happen. That's why we need the insurance.