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Pre 1976, or have you ever gone to Carbur's?

I think another contributing factor was the rise of the automobile here in the US, it just never worked quite the same in other countries. Of course most of those other countries are much older and their infrastructure was well developed when cars came along, whereas the US infrastructure evolved with the auto.

I can well remember taking the train many times when I was a kid, and most of the places we passed through were communities that had grown up about and around the railroads, and as they expanded, as is so often the case, the stations were left in areas that became rundown, partly because of the freight traffic due to the location of the station. In Europe and Japan, the railroads also came in later, and they had no scruples about placing the tracks where it was most convenient for the railroad without regard for where the center of the community was, and they also had a habit of separating freight and passenger facilities.

The little village I grew up in had devolved into a "flag stop" on the railroad, if you wanted the train to stop and pick you up you hung a flag on the back of the firehouse (which used to be the station) and if you wanted it to let you off, you just bought a ticket to there. To ride the city bus into the city for a movie on Saturday cost $0.40, while the train, due to franchise rules (something else that did not occur in other countries) only cost $0.35, so every Saturday there would be a bunch of kids hanging out around the firehouse, with the flag out, waiting for the train so that we could go downtown for the movies with and extra $0.10 in our pockets (round trip you know.)

Our little village was also only there due to the railroad. When they came through the next village over refused to let the RR put in a hotel, because they already had one, so the stop moved a couple of miles down the road. The hotel still stands, even if the station is but a distant memory.

Being ruled by DC law, the recent court decision may have interesting implications.

Back a long time ago I used to take Amtrak from Albany NY to NY City or Plattsburgh regularly, the trip was fairly relaxing and usually on time.

My boss used to get irked about my taking the train to Plattsburgh, until I pointed out that everyone else always took it to NY City and drove to Plattsburgh, and flew to Syracuse, and that the differential in travel times did not make a great deal of sense. After all, the trip to NY City was a shorter drive than the train, and the drive to NY was shorter than the drive to Plattsburgh, not to mention Syracuse.

Taking the train to Plattsburgh also allowed me to check a company car out of the motor pool, which added enough hours of use for them to justify one more car on the roster.

I have been a rail fan since I was a kid, but Amtrak has not gotten any business from me in years, just because of their anti-right policy.