More generally, while passenger rail is excludable, one of its most important substitutes—road travel—is generally not, and road travel suffers from a tragedy of the commons in the form of congestion. Thus, you could conceivably save more money by reducing congestion (including the value of drivers' time) than the public cost of the rail system.

But given the history of totally bogus Amtrak support, I would have to see the numbers, and they would have to be really, really well supported.

"After all, who is more likely to ride Amtrak or a commuter train — the lower-income taxpayer or the higher-income?)"

I think your arguments as to why a rail is not a public good may be right by the excludability criteria, but as a citizen of California I am certain that many people would ride a bullet train. Our commutes are ridiculous and people are distributed over very wide areas.

In the Bay Area, everyone rides BART or MUNI or AC Transit or SAMTrans etc. This ridership goes across socioeconomic lines simply because car travel is impractical in certain places. As a New Yorker, don't rich and poor alike ride the subway simply due to convenience? Is the subway a public good in your opinion?

I do think that the system might be a public good because if the state is linked up by such a rail, everyone would use it.If you have ever been over the Grapevine, you would find it infintely more comfortable to ride a train rather than a bus or car.

What bothers me the most about this is the cost, as you've aptly pointed out. So despite being in favor of such a project I am not sure if the fiscal impact for the mere planning phase is worth it.

For the trip I'm thinking, assuming the 50.5 cents per mile allotted by the IRS, Amtrak would cost more than double, take significantly longer, and require arrival times around 3:00AM.

Attractive indeed …