We have a serious oil dependence problem in this country. A massive percentage of that oil is used in transportation and transportation is one of the hardest areas to substitute an alternate fuel relatively easily. What are we, as a nation, going to do about it? The answer isn't more planes, nor is it private automobiles. Which basically leaves buses and trains, and I think I can speak for most of the country when I say people generally prefer trains over buses.
We also need to clarify whether we're focused on the intercity or the local transportation aspect of this.
I've never seen an electrified intercity bus.
On the other hand, within a city, there are places where you may not want to build a tunnel for the trains because of the cost / benefit, and there's no space to separate trains from automobile traffic. There's a part of the E branch of the MBTA Green Line where the train actually runs in the same lane as traffic, and driving a light truck on the tracks (I've done it) kind of sucks. (On the other hand, the E branch is a case where I think maybe a tunnel makes sense. But there are other tunnels that people seem to want more at the moment.)
I don't really care what it costs, I want a plan - I want some sort of road map forward that says how are we going to get ourselves out of this mess? And buying plane tickets with tax dollars is NOT the answer. The amount we are currently spending on Amtrak pales in comparison to what we'll need to spend to have the infrastructure to live comfortably in a post-oil era. If you think the [insert train name here] should be eliminated because no one rides it, then perhaps you should invest the money to make a train that people will want to ride! And it all comes down to infrastructure.
There are several things that belong in that plan:
1) High speed intercity rail service. Where you see a Salt Lake City or larger primary census area within 500 miles (or perhaps even somewhat more) of another similarily large primary census area, there ought to be tracks and trains that will get you from downtown station to downtown station in three hours or less. This plus sleeper service being available on these high speed tracks for longer trips ought to reduce the airplane dependence significantly. Nobody seems to run high speed rail off anything other than catenary, and that's what these tracks should use.
2) Expanded Amtrak service to smaller towns. The red routes on NARP's map of proposed routes may be a good starting point. I tend to feel like ideally these trains should be operated on existing freight tracks, but maybe Amtrak should get new, dedicated to Amtrak, (mostly) single track along abandoned rights of way / rights of way that have lost tracks over the years. These tracks, and all of Amtrak's existing routes, all should be electrified with catenary.
3) Electrified local mass transportation.
4) Electrify the freight railroads, and expand their capacity to the point where long haul cargo doesn't tend to end up on the highways so much.
5) Encourage zoning that will prevent new buildings from being built in places / ways that are incompatible with mass transit.
6) Convince the farmers who live out in the middle of nowhere that getting city dwellers to stop using so much gasoline by spending money on all of the above will help to keep the prices they pay for gasoline from rising as quickly.
There's also the question of whether increasing the demand for copper by doing this will cause problems.
