HARTFORD, Conn. -- I was scheduled to fly to Chicago on Sept. 13, begins an editorial in the Hartford Courant. When it became clear that nobody was flying to Chicago so soon after the day of infamy, I had another idea. I called Amtrak, to inquire about the Lake Shore Limited. I'd drive to Springfield, hop on the train, snooze as I cruised across the heart of America and be at Union Station in plenty of time.

Unfortunately, I was not the sole proprietor of this inspiration. The train was sold out for the next 11 days.

Drat the luck for me, but a win for common sense. The events of Sept. 11 have illustrated, like nothing since perhaps World War II, the need for a modern and efficient railroad system in this country to complement our first-rate air and highway systems. With air travel challenged and highways crowded, people went looking for their old friend the train.

Our response to this opportunity? Well, it may be to dissolve Amtrak.

Congress passed a law four years ago saying Amtrak had to break even next year and created a bipartisan commission, the Amtrak Reform Council, to oversee the effort. The council determined on Nov. 9 that Amtrak will not meet its fall 2002 deadline for running in the black.

That decision requires that Amtrak draw up plans for its own liquidation.

In one sense, the timing is stupendously unfortunate. Amtrak ridership was up 1 percent over October of last year, and ridership on the high-speed Acela service was up 43 percent, while air travel was down more than 20 percent. Amtrak is carrying more than 60,000 passengers a day, 22 million a year. In the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak carries enough people to fill 121 flights a day.

On the other hand, the timing is excellent. Government cannot allow the service to be stopped. Thus, we need to reach a decision on the best way to provide the service.

Amtrak was created as a quasi-governmental corporation 30 years ago to take over most of the nation's rail passenger operations.

As Steve Goddard sees it, Amtrak started behind the eight ball and has stayed there for one fundamental reason, having more to do with the tracks than the trains.

Goddard, a Hartford lawyer who's also a transportation writer and activist, said the government pays for the infrastructure of the air and highway systems, but expects the railroads to pay for their own infrastructure. Somehow, it's become a given that highways are essential spending, while railroad tracks are an extra expense.

So, the federal highway expenditure for 2001, $33.5 billion, is passed with barely a yawn, while the politicians scream about government waste and the evils of godless liberalism because Amtrak is $3 billion in debt.

It's not surprising that Amtrak is in debt. It's told to make money, but also told not to drop unprofitable routes in the districts of key members of Congress. And Congress has never given Amtrak the funds to upgrade its aging infrastructure, which would help erase the deficit.

The point here, Goddard said, is that national rail passenger service doesn't have to make money; it doesn't anywhere in the industrialized world. It throws off so many benefits to the economy that it makes up for the loss - just like the highways. Amtrak's been a target for conservative demagoguery for Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and that ilk. Subsidizing transportation to improve commerce is actually a good conservative issue.

Goddard thinks the government ought to own the infrastructure for its transportation systems, including the rails. "Having done that, it should privatize the operation of them. We need to create a level playing field, and then let good business principles govern," he said.

In other words, the government takes over all the tracks, bridges and tunnels, and private companies run the trains. The service is the important thing, not who runs it.

There's no reason why this country shouldn't have the best rail system in the world, especially now that the need for it has been so dramatically demonstrated. We're involved in a war that is significantly rooted in our need for foreign oil. Good inter-city and commuter rail service could vastly reduce our dependence, without chewing up the Alaskan wilderness.

Amtrak, rightly accused of weak management at times, has made substantial improvements in many areas, but has never quite gotten there. Goddard took the Acela from New York to New Haven a couple of weeks ago, the day after the Queens, N.Y., plane crash. He was in the club car with his son, watching CNN, and was shocked to see a story about what appeared to be another plane crash.