OK the danger of using the market will bear argument together with the firm conviction that such techniques can be used to fund other stuff is that this would create the tendency to maximize revenues by simply not increasing capacity as much as possible. It creates an incentive to keep caps on capacity on a monopoly business where there is upside revenue possibility. If that is to be used as a general technique, it stands to reason that those who are bearing the market get a say in it. That is they be fully informed of what is being done and be allowed to vote as to what extent they are willing to go along with it. Otherwise to some extent they are being fooled into doing something that they are not fully aware of. I am all for telling truths, but not limiting it to only the parts that are convenient to one particular agenda.
Specially in the case of NEC, the stark choice is either to use the revenue surplus as collateral for acquiring more rolling stock and put them into service which will actually put somewhat downward pressure on revenue per unit, but hopefully will still grow revenue, In this case it cannot be used for something else other than for paying down the financing that was received based on the promise of using the revenue to pay it off. Or simply siphon the surplus away to do something else somewhere - say run LD trains or build roads or whatever depending on whose agenda we are pushing. In the latter case one would be able to maintain artificially high unit revenue claiming that it is OK to do it because the market will bear. Similar techniques of using artificial scarcity to get higher unit revenues is often called extortion under other circumstances.
I'm not gonna worry about a surplus of capacity driving down fares on the NEC. LOL.
In due time rebuilding the NEC will advance to where the tunnel and bridge chokepoints are gone.
Then trains will run 4 times each hour between NYC and DC, almost like transit.
But by then we'll be running trains hourly down to Richmond, and 6 or 8 trains a day to Raleigh, with 4 to 6 of those going on to Charlotte, and at least two more reaching Atlanta.
A couple of trains will head down into Delmarva.
The
Cardinal will run daily, along with perhaps a couple of corridor trains D.C.-Charlottesville-Charleston, WV.
Meanwhile,
Keystones will run hourly to Harrisburg.
The
Pennsylvanian will run thru the Allegheny mountains 6 or 8 times a day because it will come out to cost as much to upgrade to handle one more passenger train a day as to handle 8.
One more train will be needed to Florida.
And extending the Lynchburger to Bristol and then Knoxville and Chattanooga seems inevitable.
Somewhat similar growth will take place north of NYC.
The addition supply of frequencies and routes will call forth the extensive pent-up demand to fill these trains. And as long as demand is strong enuff to soak up any added capacity, there is no incentive to restrain such additions.
The fares on the Acela IIs, with 40% more capacity and more trains per hour, will be what the traffic will bear. The maximum rail fare will be set by the airline shuttles in fact, tho at times the walk-up Acela fares will be higher, due to the faster trip times and better value for money.
I'm expecting to see the NEC grow enormously once infrastructure and equipment permits it. The single-level Eastern LD trains to grow nicely, whether 5, 10, or 20-year outlooks. The Midwest and West Coast corridor services will also how substantially. It will be by at least 30% after the bi-levels replace the older cars and the 110-mph segments cut 30 or 40 minutes from Chicago trips to Springfield and St Louis as well as to Ann Arbor and Detroit. The Western LD trains will not be getting new equipment so their growth will be physically limited.
But letting the Western LD trains become a smaller and smaller part of the growing Amtrak will tend to protect them rather than put them at added risk. They will become relatively small enuff to seem hardly worth the fuss about their few hundred million in losses.