European Rail Service

As pretty much everybody knows, European rail systems are very efficient, comfortable, and well-designed.  I'm jealous, even though train tickets are way more expensive than I thought they would be.  Of course, everything here is more expensive than I thought it would be. 

I used to think that European rail service was so much better than rail service (and bus service, and every other kind of US public transport) because US rail carriers (Amtrak) had been subsidized.  I learned recently, though, that European and other mass transit systems throughout the developed world are heavily subsidized, which is the only thing that keeps them running.  Maybe we need more, not fewer rail subsidies in the US.

Not sure why I didn't assume that European rail was subsidized; only makes sense.  Europe = government intervention in economies, right?

The apparent efficiency of these systems seems like proof that subsidized or public systems can provide a quality of service that can be unmatched by the market. 

Government intervention in rail markets may help providers coordinate and benefit from economies of scale which are necessary in order for transport systems to work efficiently.  If you don't subsidize, using rail transport will cost more, so many fewer people will use rail, so it will be more costly, an so on…  Subsidies probably also make it possible for transport providers to provide services to places that wouldn't be economical destinations otherwise; keeping rural communities alive, despite economic inefficiencies, may be an outcome we value intrinsically. 

Also, it seems hard to argue that the car-centric US culture is more efficient, even in a purely economic sense, than the fast, clean, convenient, and energy-efficient public transport here, even if it's subsidized. 

Of course, private transport is also heavily subsidized in the US (most roads are public, for one thing, and there are many direct and indirect subsidies to auto manufacturing and gasoline production).  So our system may well be the result of heavy subsidies to the automotive industry and smaller subsidies to rail.  Perhaps we would get something like the European system in a purely market-driven economy where nothing was subsidized at all.