This article is based on a Wall Street Journal opinion column containing several serious misstatements of fact--myths presented as truth. 

Fact: on average, about two thirds of the passengers on Amtrak's long-distance trains are traveling in coach class from one mid-point to another. These are not, as is alleged, wealthy retirees whose cross-country rail vacation is being subsidized by the taxpayers.

Fact: for hundreds of community hospitals in small towns all across the west and mid-west, Amtrak long-distance trains provide essential medical transport. Patients needing sophisticated diagnoses or complicated medical procedures are sent in accessible bedrooms--there is one in every Amtrak sleeping car--to larger cities for the treatment they need.

Fact: for millions of Americans all across the west and mid-west--your readers!--Amtrak is their ONLY affordable public transportation.

The Wall Street Journal got it wrong. So did Don Brunell.