As far as Amtrak long distance is concerned, speed needs to be improved as well as capital investment and I believe in private sector.
The problem with private-sector railroad infrastructure is that railroads require a lot of overhead whether business is good or not. When business drops, as what happened after World War 2 when cars, trucks, and planes cut into railroad market share, the railroads financed by private capital responded by cutting back their infrastructure so severely that they have been having all sorts of problems with capacity and antiquated equipment, issues with deferred maintenance, etc. now that business has rebounded.
Clearly, it would make more sense to have railroad infrastructure, like all other transportation infrastructure in this country, publicly owned and financed, with perhaps some of the operating companies being private enterprises.
Amtrak is more competitive than bus but needs locomotive and train car upgrades. If we wanted an ideal transit system, Amtrak would be privatized and we would see new concepts for ground or near ground technologies.
Why would a privatized Amtrak spend big bucks on expensive cutting edge technologies when they can barely afford to buy desperately need new passenger cars and locomotives based on the readily available existing technology? Heck, they can't even afford to serve edible food to sleeping car passengers. And that's with a government subsidy.
The old system is antiquated of passenger rail as is. Right now we have vehicles based on rubber tires or rail based technologies and both concepts are decades old. Vehicles have seen design changes and technological improvements but still retain the same basic principles.
So what? The basic concept of flanged steel wheels on steel rails is simple, efficient and time tested. Rubber pneumatic tires on paved roads is also a very stable well-understood technology. Cost and performance are very predictable. Why the need to innovate for innovation's sake?
The freight railroads and Amtrak own valuable right of way assets and in the freight railroads themselves, due to lack of competition, real innovation has not happened.
"Lack of competition" for railroads? What do you call cars, buses, trucks, planes, and barges?
Jay Walder, former chairman of the MTA is at Hyperloop right now who understands the existing rail assets so we are seeing some migration on that front for the future.
What "migration?" The last talk I heard from someone working on a Hyperloop project indicated that all anyone has in operation is a short-distance small-scale model. Most of the real barriers to a practical passenger Hyperloop have not been overcome and may never be. Anyway, what's the point? If you want to travel at airline speeds, take an airliner. Again, airplanes are a very reliable technology, and they're widely available right now. Why re-invent the wheel? The same goes for maglev, even though there are working systems. They're more complicated and expensive to build and operate than a traditional railroad. Why bother? Innovation for innovation's sake? I'll admit I'm a bit of curmudgeon about this issue. In my view, most of the technological innovation that I've seen during my lifetime has made life more stressful and environmentally unsustainable than the technology available in my younger days.