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Increasing capacity on corridor trains, i.e. NEC, Los Angles to San Diego, etc., frequently results in increased use.  It also increases cost.  Capacity on the California corridor routes has increased significantly over the last decade.  Yet they failed to cover their 2007 variable operating costs to the tune of $38.7 million before interest and depreciation.  Whether increasing capacity on the long distance trains would increase riders and market share significantly is problematic.The Texas Eagle runs daily, whereas the Sunset is a thrice weekly train.  The Eagle lost $25.3 million in 2007 or 19.4 cents per passenger mile before interest and depreciation.  The Sunset lost $29.8 million or 48.5 cents per passenger mile during the same period.  Increasing capacity might draw more patrons, but whether the increased volumes would offset the increased cost, given the economics of long distance passenger trains, is doubtful.Gasoline today costs about what it cost in 1980 when adjusted for inflation.  Personal incomes have more than offset the increase in gasoline costs since then.  Americans are getting use to $3.00 per gallon gasoline.   The nation's airports and airways are more congested than they were 10 or 15 years ago, although the worst bottlenecks tend to be in a few spots.  Dallas/Fort Worth Airport is one of the busiest in the country.  Yet it is relatively easy to get in and out of the airport if one knows where he or she is going.  None of the airports in Texas are major bottlenecks except during severe weather, which occurs infrequently.  Telephone polls, because of their nature, are notoriously inaccurate.  People will frequently say that they favor spending more money for roads, schools, trains, etc. when given an either or scenario or a simple multiple options scenario.  But if the poll taker explains what it would cost the person responding to the poll, the answer frequently changes, i.e. people favor increased funding for schools until they find out that their property taxes are going to go up eight per cent.  Most of the polls that I have read regarding the public's views of increased passenger rail service are surface scratchers.  The key poll is whether people would use the trains.How much the United States is spending in Iraq or on aviation or highway infrastructure is immaterial.  How much other countries spend on passenger rail is irrelevant.  The question is how much money should the U.S. spend on passenger rail, where should it be spent, and who should pay for it?  There are a number of ways to finance a better passenger rail system.  And I favor doing so where it makes economic and social sense.  By now most people who have been reading this forum know that I believe the future for passenger rail is in high density corridors.  They also know that I think spending money on long distance passenger trains is bad policy.  Money spent on long distance trains takes resources away from the enhancement of existing corridors and the implementation of new ones.  Whether savings from discontinuing the long distance trains would be redirected to the corridors is a legitimate question.  If enough people twist the arms of their elected representatives, assuming that public financing is the only option, which it is not, money for corridors would probably be forthcoming.  The other key element, of course, is whether people use the trains.  If the money people see that people use the trains that they say they want and will pay to do so, the money to fund new trains will be there.  This is the reason the U.S. spends heaps of money on aviation and highways.  It is what the people want.The Vision for the Future, U.S. Intercity Passenger Rail Network through 2050, which I presume you have read, lays out an ambitious vision for passenger rail in the U.S.  It will cost a lot of money.  If the amount of money lost on long distance passenger trains was redirected to the implementation of rapid rail or high speed rail in the corridors outlined in the Vision, it would add up to $38,776,519,374.22 by 2050, assuming average inflation of three cent per year, which is the rate used by the authors of Vision.....  The money could build a lot of rapid and high speed rail.
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