What killed passenger service was twofold; when travel restrictions were lifted at the end of WWII, the Armed Forces still had first priority, so people who wanted to travel had to find other ways of getting around, and then the RR's lost the mail contracts. Passenger service never was self sufficient, the tab was paid by mail and express services. We are the only place in the world that think that public transportation should be self supporting. We never consider the ways the gov't has subsidized the airlines and the automobile. If the passenger trains were considered as a social cost we wouldn't be in this mess.
We once had the best RR's in the world and we let it all go to travel in what Ed Abbey used to refer to as motorized coffins.

Mark Ross