This could only make sense to a lunatic DUmbfuk.
No, it's not really as stupid as it sounds, he is saying that alternative means would require much more expense in highway infrastructure, as well as the additional expenses to expand traffic throughput on already-packed English motorways, inevitably requiring additional real estate for the expansion to handle traffic.
As far as the economics of rail goes, there are really more like 240 full-traffic workdays a year. Both the the white and blue collar workers use the network of Amtrak and regional transit rail in the NE corridor, it's not all one or the other. Pretty sure Stinky is full of crap on the ridership, though, I think the number he quoted as 'Daily' is given elsewhere as 'Monthly.' Everywhere else it loses money, but even there, outside the actual cities, almost all of it runs on rails that are paid for by freight operations and the passenger runs just pay for rights-of-way on existing systems. A billion dollars a year is actually a pretty modest amount to keep a minimal system alive for strategic infrastructure purposes, compared to some of the other crap we spend money on. Money aside, though, it really is a strategic issue to have a back-up system for unforeseen events like Bush's No-Fly order, and with the near-total death of long-distance bus lines, rail is about the only available fall-back.