If my math is any good, Amtrak needs to raise ticket prices by just under 20 bucks to stop losing money (25.8M passengers, and losing 500M/year). If the passengers won’t pony up the dough, it isn’t a viable business.
The alternative to direct subsidies would be to move the mail subsidy from airlines back to trains, and raise the air fares to make up the difference.
$500M in OPERATING costs. This funding is for closer to $2B. So that’s 80 bucks per ticket.