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[quote user="V.Payne"] Intercity trains have a declining marginal cost curve [/quote] What you say about maringal cost curves and fixed costs covered by more units is true. What I have not seen is a discussion about the pricing that would be necessary to attract riders to fill the capacity and the bottom line impact. There is little evidence that people in Texas and Oklahoma are ready to give up their cars, planes, etc. to hop on a train.  They have not done so to date, and I suspect that it will be years before they cotton up to the idea. Or are forced by circumstances to do so. At one time Amtrak extended the Texas Eagle from Dallas to Houston.  I rode it several times.  It turned out to be a bad idea because there was no market for the train.   Whethe there is a market for passenger rail between DFW and Houston is to be learned.  Texas Central Railway proposes to run high speed trains between the two cities.  I have yet to see an realistic ridership projections and financials for the project. That's because they have not released any. Adding capacity does not necessarily translate into more riders.  The airlines learned this the hard way.  Prior to the financial crisis they expanded capacity in a rush for market share.  It cost them dearly. Today, as a perusual of any business publication will show, the airlines are doing great, in part because they have scaled back their capacity to fit the market.
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