Consider that most regional airline routes to rural parts of the country are subsidized as well (and far more is spent on it). Most of Alaska would lose air service. Large chunks of Texas, Arizona, and Alabama would be cut off.

I think we need to have a concept of essential rail service, like we have with road and air.

These routes should have have any obligation to make money, because they provide a benefit to tax payers. Most infrastructure is just accepted as something that should be funded.

Another reason these long distance routes should be left intact is because they are an important anchor for eventually expanding to high speed rail.

China kept their unprofitable rural slow passenger routes into the distant corners of their country, and now they are converting them to high speed.