“You are not going to cut costs far enough on the long-distance trains to make the long-distance trains profitable,” Boardman said…The kindest thing that can be said of Mr. Boardman’s testimony before the Senate Appropriation hearing last week is that he spoke nonsense. If we go back to the 1980’s and early 90’s when W. Graham Claytor was Amtrak President we find he expanded long distance service and increased Amtrak’s cost recovery from 42 % to 80%. When he retired the expectation was that Amtrak would soon recover 100% of costs. Amtrak after Claytor left cut back on long distance trains to  “save money ” , created the Acela and instead of being on a glide path to profitability almost went out of business.Enewsletter May 23, 2011