And Yet There’s Something Even More Surprising . . .

What’s surprising isn’t so much that MTA Chairman Jay Walder is leaving after only two years but rather that there exists a privately run railway company that is actually profitable:

The MTA released a statement saying Walder has been hired to be chief executive officer of the MTR Corp. in Hong Kong, which owns and operates rail lines in Asia and Europe. It also is involved in property development and consulting.

The publicly traded company, which doesn’t receive or rely on public subsidies, reported $3.8 billion in revenue last year with a $1.1 billion profit.

Doesn’t every opinion person always say that rail systems are never profitable and that’s why we all have to suck up huge losses?

And I agree with NY Mag’s Daily Intel that the automated countdown clocks he put in are cool — they’re far more useful, even on the few lines that have them (none of which include a train I live on), than, say, that dopey 7 train extension . . .