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[quote user="Phoebe Vet"][quote user="gardendance"][quote user="Samantha"] Southwest Airlines has 60 flights a day between Dallas and Houston.  If the economy goes south, it can reduce the number of flights to 40 or 50 and still have a viable operation.  It can park the excess airplanes, layoff the crews, and save on the other variable costs, e.g. fuel, maintenance, etc.  [/quote]At least Amtrak's not going to decrease it's Dallas to Houston service anytime soon.[/quote]If Southwest can fill 60 flights a day between Dallas and Houston, I see no reason why a 150 MPH Acela type service running 5 or six trains a day in each direction couldn't capture a significant portion of that.  Surely big flat rural Texas could build a relatively straight ROW.OK Samantha.  You may now tell me why investment in such a service would be foolish.[/quote]Getting Texans to use trains will require two biggies.  The first will be a sea change in attitudes about taking the train.  People in Texas think car first and airplane second.  Less than one per cent, if that many, people in Texas think train.  And until driving or flying become cost prohibitive - we are not even close to that point - trains are not likely to play a significant role in the Lone Star State, except for commuter rail.The second is investment capital.  Amtrak estimates that it would cost $25 to $40 million a mile to build high speed rail.  And this does not include the real estate and equipment costs.  Thus, a line that paralleled I-45 from Dallas to Houston would cost approximately $7.8 billion before real estate and equipment costs.  The real estate costs would probably bring the figure well north of $10 billion.  Texas looked at high speed rail about 15 years ago.  The fare box would not cover the cost; therefore, the proponents looked to the state for support, and the state said no.  Given the debt loads being carried by Texans, as well as Americans, I doubt that the state would now say yes to high speed rail.  A more feasible albeit not ready for prime time plan would be rapid rail.  But it won't work until the cost of driving and flying, driven by congestion, gets much higher than it is.  Even it would require a significant outlay of money by the state and federal governments.  And for the reasons cited I don't see it happening in the near future.The most likely next passenger rail system in Texas will be the Austin to San Antonio commuter rail service and possibly the Houston to Galveston rail corridor.  They will not be high speed.  In fact, they probably won't even be rapid rail, which I define as trains that average 80 mph between end points.
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