The "contracted out" commuter rail lines are really not privatized in any real sense. The commuter rail agency owns the equipment, owns the tracks (typically), owns the maintenance shops, sets the schedules, sets the fares, has the fare revenue deposited into its account, and pays the bills. What they do is to hire a contractor to do *operations*.
This allows them to avoid having the railroad employees on the civil service payroll -- making it easier to get rid of incompetent managers, at least every 5 years when the contract comes up for renewal -- and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to change work rules. These seem to be the major benefits.
It's bascially equivalent to the government hiring a private contractor to mow the grass at the public park. Nobody would claim that the park had been "privatized".
I'd be OK with Amtrak doing this sort of thing, since it seems to work OK. Amtrak's unions probably wouldn't be OK with it though.
In fact, what actually seems to be happening bit by bit is that Amtrak is *becoming* the contractor, with the states owning the equipment, owning the tracks, owning the maintenance shops, setting the schedules, setting the fares, paying the bills...
