Thinking of taking the train to San Antonio this summer? Wait until after September 4 or you’ll be riding a bus. The Tower 55 project has been a long-time coming so this isn’t a surprise.
I am a little confused as to why Amtrak is suspending service south of Fort Worth, though. The tower is basically right at the stations used by Amtrak and Trinity Railway Express but surely there is a way to bypass that area and maintain rail service all the way to San Antonio with a bus connection from Dallas to Fort Worth. I’ll see what I can find out.
Another on the Texas passenger train idea. I’ve had this in the buffer for a while and just noticed it again now.
Two quotes amuse me:
“[…] this latest plan to make passenger rail work in highway-loving Texas.”
“Highway-loving Texas.” Let’s see what there is for them to love.
There are several thousand miles of expressway in Texas, most of which can be used at no direct cost to the user, 24 hours per day, every day of the year.
There are three intercity trains in Texas. One of the trains runs from Chicago to San Antonio via Longview, Dallas, and Ft Worth once per day in each direction. Three days a week, you can connect in San Antonio with a train that makes it’s way from New Orleans to Los Angeles via Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso. There is another daily train that connects at Ft Worth for Norman and OKC.
So if a Texan wanted to love a train instead, they wouldn’t have much opportunity, would they? I maintain that so many people drive in Texas because they have no other rational choice. The same is true in most of the rest of the country, of course.
The other is this:
““It is, at the moment, considered to be a 100 percent privately financed venture, so in some respects, we may be limited to what our authority is,” [NTCOG senior program manager Tom] Shelton said.”
It’s a 100% privately financed venture as someone just said. What makes government officials think they have any authority? Yes, there are land-use regulations through which they can exercise some control, but if the company thinks it will make more sense to have a station in Waxahachie instead of Ft Worth, then that’s where they’re going to put their station.
Not unlike All Aboard Florida, but not nearly as far along. And this isn’t the first time that this has been floated. Google around for “Texas TGV” from the early 1990s.
