You should try starting the game in 1950 on hard, I’m at 2158 or so year and just found a way to get close to break even point… basically tons of cargo which is profitable and easy to make and try to build 1 3 town line at a time… since you need 3 trains or so to get the time down, lots of buses to feed the line your looking at a healthy 3mil profit before passenger trains to break even.
I started my trains with 20 mil surplus and it drained me to -2mil before the towns started to balance things out…. granted no passenger line is making money… 🙂