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[quote user="Dakguy201"] Does that same opportunity exist on a portion of the Sunset's route?  For example, New Orleans and Houston are about the same (timetable) distance apart.  Is that portion of the route much more noticably patronized?   Is there some other city pair that enjoys much heavier patronage than the rest of the route?[/quote]I don't know the passenger loads on the Sunset from New Orleans to Houston.  Amtrak does not publish for public analysis the loads by segment, or at least I cannot find them.  The population of New Orleans was estimated in 2007 to be 273,000, 60% of the pre-Katrina figure and an increase of about 50,000 since July 2006.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans%2C_LA#cite_note-55#cite_note-55"></a>  It does not have the population base, even when considering the metropolitan area, to be good candidate for more frequent passenger rail service.  There are two segments on the Sunset route that could be candidates for development as rapid rail corridors.  One is from Houston to San Antonio.  Both cities (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas) have populations in the millions (Houston = 5.6 million, San Antonio = 2 million).  The other is Tucson to Phoenix.  They have a combined population of 5.1 million.  It is approximately 210 miles from Houston to San Antonio.  The Sunset takes 5 hours and 10 minutes to run from Houston to San Antonio.  It takes 4 hours and 45 minutes to go the other way.  If the time could be reduced to roughly three hours, which would probably require a significant upgrade of the line; frequent, comfortable, dependable, and economical trains might be able to compete with the alternatives, e.g. air, bus, car, etc.  But I don't think it will happen until air and road congestion becomes a major problem, and they are not there yet.  The Arizona Department of Transportation has studied the feasibility of developing passenger train service between Tucson and Phoenix.  It recommend passenger rail as a tool to reduce congestion on I-10 between Tucson and Phoenix, but I don't know where it stands.      Developing rapid rail corridors in Texas, at least, will require an infusion of state money.  And the legislature in this state is not prone to spend money on railway trains, although it has coughed up some money for the Heartland Flyer.If Amtrak discontinued the Sunset Limited, as well as the Texas Eagle, which serve few travelers, they could use the locomotives, coaches, diners, and perhaps the lounge cars to begin developing more corridors in the southwest.  The same concept might apply to developing more frequent service between Chicago, Milwaukee, and the Twin Cities, but I don't have a feel for that part of the country, other than to say that people in Chicago and Milwaukee seemed to have a more favorable opinion of passenger trains than people in the southwest.
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