Should tax dollars pay for a private train?

Brightline promised to do what no other American company has done in more than a century: operate a profitable, privately funded passenger train. More than seven years after the trains started running in South Florida, Brightline is neither profitable nor fully privately funded. In fact, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been allocated for constructing stations and improving safety infrastructure near crossings — all in support of a private company whose trains have struck and killed more than 180 people. In small-town coastal Florida, where passenger train service has been cut off for decades, some elected officials, business leaders and residents are clamoring to spend even more.