Long-distance trains can be successful if the route includes a bunch of city pairs where rail can compete. The Lake Shore Limited is a money suck but Chicago to Cleveland, Toledo, Cleveland to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh to Buffalo, and so on could carry the route if frequency and reliability were improved.
The longer-distance trains in Europe sometimes work like this, so if you are going long distance, you see the seats around you get filled up and empty out repeatedly as passengers churn.
I'm really interested to see if the Wolverine can start to resemble a European train service - most of the track is now under public ownership and the major conflict points that cause delays are being eliminated. The speed will only be 110mph but the service could become amazing with unfettered access to the tracks. I'm hoping even the small cities along the route can start to post high ridership numbers.
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la forme d'une ville change plus vite, hélas! que le coeur d'un mortel...
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