With due respect, there HAVE been "grant programs," public and private, in North America that have granted money to rail preservation projects big and small. They range from grants from groups/corporations such as the NRHS and Kalmbach Publishing specifically towards rail preservation projects, to private underwriting of loco or car restoration (as one example, the Wilmington & Western's PRR doodlebug 4662 was granted a six-figure grant from the Revere Foundation, of the copper company, for its total rehab in the 1980s), to underwriting of right-of-way acquisition for rail preservation (the Western Maryland Scenic RR, Cass Scenic RR, Cumbres & Toltec, and others), to rather large grants from Federal programs such as ISTEA, TEA-21, and the like for station rehabilitation, improving handicapped access, etc.

And as I've said here before, to attribute the supposed broad success and proliferation of rail preservation in the U.K. simply to a grant program like the Heritage Lottery (in which rail has to compete with all manners of other historic preservation) is so simple-minded and glib as to be downright insulting to the folks who actually made such preservation happen long before any such lottery or grants were about.

Remember, folks: Grant programs are typically set up to reward already successful, or partially-successful, programs in furthering worthy and achievable goals, not as "seed money" to start a program or fend off the scrappers or bulldozers. "Let's throw money at this and see if we can make something of this" is more typical of the "proactive" way government acts when lobbied (setting up an industrial park or "rail-banking" a short line, for example).

Being labelled as glib and simple minded, I thought the subject was the revival of previously abandoned rail lines as a preservation trend that may assert itself here as it had in the U.K and not the rehabilitation of individual pieces of equipment or property here and there as you cited in the U.S.
It was never inferred or meant to be a didactic form of dualism lodged between choosing the efforts of individuals and the receipt of grants as a deciding factor in any success.
I said nothing disparaging about individual efforts and sweat equity. Not mentioning this seems to have stepped on your pet corn, which was not the subject I commented on.
History is commerce in the U.K whereas in the U.S, it is largely relegated to interpretation by Disney by the masses and not a driver of the economy in any meaningful sense. In areas that need a economic boost from tourism where you have the right mix of scenic advantages and a recognition by corporations is an exception rather than a rule. Preservation for preservation's sake as an impetus for revival is a rare bird.
Commerce and population density will drive the correction of "abandonment errors", not preservation, which is why I questioned the topic as one of having any connection to preservation in the first place. There are plenty of unused rail lines appropriate for museums but it's a moot point in terms of the probability of reviving them here in the U.S based on what most here consider "nostalgia"...in a country trying to move forward in a difficult situation.

To get back to the original post, I think the answer is that no, we don't have that here, because here isn't like there in any other than superficial ways in terms of this subject.

I'm sure we all know of lines that would have been convenient to have retained.....or even double tracks that were single tracked and now are bottlenecks......but none of this was done through any efforts like the Beeching program. Many cities find streetcar lines go very well now in areas where they were before....especially if their presence was what built those areas in the first place. So, unless we stop subsidizing the oil, trucking, and auto industries and replace sprawl with more dense development, only the need to move freight is likely to result in large resurrections of removed railroad lines. Since railroads don't compete with truckers on LCL traffic or in terms of time efficient service delivery, unless a bulk shipper happens, very unlikely.

Nothing UK-like about it.

dave