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Texas Central Project


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11 minutes ago, cougarpad said:

That is a biggie that people dont understand when they think of this project. At the Houston Station you will have rental space for business, plus hotels and restaurants most certainly will want to build around the station. It not just jobs for the rail itself but in a much braoder view the jobs and commerce that will be created around each station. That station out by Bryan will most certainly see a positive impact when it comes to new business and increase in commerce.

I've wondered if the Roans Prairie station is just a means to create a exclusive master planned communities...deeded several acre lots, commuter pass($15k+ per year), less than 30 minute commute time from from Houston station, beyond reach of hurricane forces, etc.  

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59 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

I've wondered if the Roans Prairie station is just a means to create a exclusive master planned communities...deeded several acre lots, commuter pass($15k+ per year), less than 30 minute commute time from from Houston station, beyond reach of hurricane forces, etc.  

This is more presumption than anything else, but thinking strategically and pragmatically, the Roans Prairie station is more a way to satisfy with potential power brokers in those counties and within Bryan/College Station. Its why you don't see another station at the other end near Dallas. Waco doesn't really have that much pull, nor does a small town like Corsicana. Its a play to secure a position in a growing region with one of the largest, if not the largest university institutions in the state.

I see a lot of potential to use this station to leap frog over and connect Austin with Houston in the future.

Another thing to consider is that historically Railroads make the most money in land acquisition, land redistribution, and land development. Its why they got so big and so popular by local politicians in the late 1800's and early 1900's. No better way to lock in a dedicated user base than to build it yourself. If you want to see the success of developments around transit by successful transit companies I recommend research Hong Kong's Metro. Build rail to places people WANT to go to, and then build where you WANT people to live/work/shop around the station, so its one continuous ecosystem where you don't have to stray to far from the Transit system to get what you need. HSR checks the boxes from a planning perspective. While we can debate about the locations of the end stations its still connects two cities people frequently want to go to plus a ties in a small city that pulls lots of students from both Dallas and Houston, and when I was at A&M that was the majority of the campus. HSR also with its land acquisition has the opportunity to build around it and create a kind of ecosystem/lifestyle revolving around riding this train on the regular.

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5 hours ago, Luminare said:

Another thing to consider is that historically Railroads make the most money in land acquisition, land redistribution, and land development. Its why they got so big and so popular by local politicians in the late 1800's and early 1900's. 

Railroads generally got their land for free in the 1800's and early 1900's. No way you don't make money with free land.

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CEO of Texas Central  went on a podcast and gave a bunch of real answers: https://www.wfaa.com/amp/article/news/local/texas/texas-central-ceo-bullet-train-congress-passing-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill/287-b65e6b39-9c82-4f30-8988-64dd51c2c159

TLDR:

  • Dependent on federal government for long-term low cost loans
  • $24 billion hard cost
  • If money was available, shovel-in-dirt would be roughly 6 months away
  • Tickets to cost 75% of an air travel ticket
  • Saying it will be the highest speed train in the world because of average trip speed of 178 MPH (because of one stop)
  • 40% of land has been secured.
  • At-grade crossings have been reduced from 46 to 11 during the last environmental permitting
  • Will take 80.5 months to construct.
  • Will start building 50 miles headed south from Dallas for testing
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7 hours ago, wilcal said:

CEO of Texas Central  went on a podcast and gave a bunch of real answers: https://www.wfaa.com/amp/article/news/local/texas/texas-central-ceo-bullet-train-congress-passing-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill/287-b65e6b39-9c82-4f30-8988-64dd51c2c159

TLDR:

  • Dependent on federal government for long-term low cost loans
  • $24 billion hard cost
  • If money was available, shovel-in-dirt would be roughly 6 months away
  • Tickets to cost 75% of an air travel ticket
  • Saying it will be the highest speed train in the world because of average trip speed of 178 MPH (because of one stop)
  • 40% of land has been secured.
  • At-grade crossings have been reduced from 46 to 11 during the last environmental permitting
  • Will take 80.5 months to construct.
  • Will start building 50 miles headed south from Dallas for testing

A quick search of fares for departing Sep 8 shows a range of $137-$391 for a round trip ticket. I wonder what the 75% means in actual dollars.

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From the article regarding loans:

Quote

Texas Central, which maintains that it will be entirely privately funded, will not ask for a federal grant or any tax money to begin the project, Aguilar said. Instead, he explained, the bipartisan infrastructure bill is expected to create low-interest, long-term loans for major infrastructure projects like the train.

“Our target has always been loans,” Aguilar added on the podcast. “It is focused, as I said on the long-term debt that is available through, for example, the RRIF program out of the U.S. Department of Transportation. And that's what you need to build large infrastructure.”

Makes sense to me. By the way this happens all the time with developments. Most large scale projects are funded by loans such as these. The issue is where do you get the loan from. Most banks aren't going to put up the kind of money TCR needs. I'm not exactly 100% on board with the Infrastructure bill as is, but if the government is putting out a loan program which can be used as a mechanism to finance this then they should definitely take it as the government can either hold or sustain that kind of debt longer than a bank could. I was suspecting that they would have to ask the government for Revenue Bonds, which would then lead them to becoming part of the government, but if this is a way out and around that problem then so be it.

11 hours ago, august948 said:

A quick search of fares for departing Sep 8 shows a range of $137-$391 for a round trip ticket. I wonder what the 75% means in actual dollars.

This was Agular's statement regarding pricing:

Quote

For the first time, Aguilar also revealed how much a ticket on the Texas bullet train might cost.

“We're at about 75% of what air travel costs, that is more or less where price point is,” Aguilar said.

So how much is that?

Southwest Airlines charges $205 to fly between Dallas and Houston on an “Anytime” fare with a week’s notice, according to a check of its website.

That means a seat on the bullet train – at about 75% the cost of airfare – might be about $153.

Like airlines, Texas Central will have dynamic pricing which fluctuates during peak times. But the train has many more seats than an airliner does, with larger cabins, and more legroom for passengers.

“This is why highspeed rail is competitive around the world. It is not necessarily that cheap,” Aguilar continued.

Once financing is secured, the first 50-miles of track will be built from Dallas to the south so engineers can conduct tests. Rail cars for Texas Central, modeled after the N700 Supreme passenger cars used by Japan Central Rail’s shinkansen service, will be assembled about 18-months before the train operations begin.

I'd imagine that the $153 would be if you scheduled a trip in advance probably a week to two weeks before. When I was living in Germany you could schedule a trip weeks in advance to make sure you were paying a lower price, but I'd imagine a same day ticket for this would be something around $300. This $150-$300 was the range for a train like this when I was in Germany, so this pricing is actually in line with what is typical for distance routes like this.

What I hope for is if this gets built then that might motivate some other savvy individuals to construct "regional" routes which make more stops and take longer to reach your destination, but it will significantly cut the cost, so then you will have competition at different price levels with two different options. A slower train with more stops, but its cheaper ($75-100) and then the quicker option with less stops ($150-$300). Again thats what a hopeful future could be. Only time will tell.

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1 hour ago, Montrose1100 said:

I don't think it's fair to compare to Japan. We live in Houston where people run into the light rail. 

What I find interesting about this photo is that the bar(s) appear to completely block passage.  Could be that it's an optical illusion, but that's what they should do at all crossings.

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2 minutes ago, august948 said:

What I find interesting about this photo is that the bar(s) appear to completely block passage.  Could be that it's an optical illusion, but that's what they should do at all crossings.

Four corner gates at level crossings are required for all high speed rail (above 79 mph) in the US by FRA regulation

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2 hours ago, Luminare said:

From the article regarding loans:

Makes sense to me. By the way this happens all the time with developments. Most large scale projects are funded by loans such as these. The issue is where do you get the loan from. Most banks aren't going to put up the kind of money TCR needs. I'm not exactly 100% on board with the Infrastructure bill as is, but if the government is putting out a loan program which can be used as a mechanism to finance this then they should definitely take it as the government can either hold or sustain that kind of debt longer than a bank could. I was suspecting that they would have to ask the government for Revenue Bonds, which would then lead them to becoming part of the government, but if this is a way out and around that problem then so be it.

This was Agular's statement regarding pricing:

I'd imagine that the $153 would be if you scheduled a trip in advance probably a week to two weeks before. When I was living in Germany you could schedule a trip weeks in advance to make sure you were paying a lower price, but I'd imagine a same day ticket for this would be something around $300. This $150-$300 was the range for a train like this when I was in Germany, so this pricing is actually in line with what is typical for distance routes like this.

What I hope for is if this gets built then that might motivate some other savvy individuals to construct "regional" routes which make more stops and take longer to reach your destination, but it will significantly cut the cost, so then you will have competition at different price levels with two different options. A slower train with more stops, but its cheaper ($75-100) and then the quicker option with less stops ($150-$300). Again thats what a hopeful future could be. Only time will tell.

$137 was much closer to the average when I was looking at it.  $391 was for a JetBlue ticket.  Not sure why it's triple the cost.  Do they serve an in-flight steak dinner or something?

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11 minutes ago, august948 said:

$137 was much closer to the average when I was looking at it.  $391 was for a JetBlue ticket.  Not sure why it's triple the cost.  Do they serve an in-flight steak dinner or something?

Its apparently based on a multitude of different factors. Could be plane size, day you purchase the ticket, ticket demand vs supply, whether that airline is operating close to a hub, the price of gas at anyone time, weekend vs weekday, day vs night, summer vs winter. Its nuts. Totally understandable why most airlines run algorithms to calculate up to date pricing. There are a bunch of videos on the topic. You should look into a channel called "Wendover Productions" on youtube. Dude loves talking about airlines. Really interesting topic. Its mostly from this person as well as a bunch of other content creators and other areas of research I started believing in HSR as a way to corner this particular market, as well as my own experience riding HSR / passenger rail in Europe.

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They need to hurry up and build this before the cost goes up even more.  First they were saying $12b, then $15b, then $18b, and now $24b.  And no word on whether they are lining up any new investors.  Interesting to see they are now asking for federal loans when previously it was going to be privately funded.

I too am surprised that there are at-grade crossings.  I'm assuming these are probably going to be things like farmers' driveways and not roads with any real traffic?  I hadn't noticed them when I looked at all the maps on the environmental study back when that came out, but I wasn't specifically looking for them.

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16 hours ago, rechlin said:

They need to hurry up and build this before the cost goes up even more.  First they were saying $12b, then $15b, then $18b, and now $24b.  And no word on whether they are lining up any new investors.  Interesting to see they are now asking for federal loans when previously it was going to be privately funded.

I too am surprised that there are at-grade crossings.  I'm assuming these are probably going to be things like farmers' driveways and not roads with any real traffic?  I hadn't noticed them when I looked at all the maps on the environmental study back when that came out, but I wasn't specifically looking for them.

You do understand we live in a different world right? Lets just say I know of an apartment job that recently got a bid price and the difference between what the original estimate was and what the actual bid price ended up being was somewhere around $40 million! Thats just a standard apartment project. Right now there are lead times for appliances and doors that extend for 6-12 months....months. If this was 2019 and those numbers ballooned then I would agree with you. Inflation and scarcity of materials/products is very real. Same goes with securing financing. Its only going to get more difficult for larger projects to secure private financing from banks as inflation grows and as liquidity shrinks. Again if this were 2019 you would be right to express concern, but the world has significantly changed since then. Time to update with it. Costs are skyrocketing, lead times are getting longer, budgets have become constrained because of rampant inflation. $24 billon is actually not that bad for a project this size. I'd suggest drastically lower your expectations in the future for things like this, but thats up to you. If this project can be built with loans from whatever the source is then that is good enough, and big projects take government loans all the time in particular big infrastructure projects.

This also isn't just you, but I'm curious why everyone is so amazed that their are at-grade crossings? We have at grade crossings on every railroad in this country. Every country that I've been too that has HSR also has at some juncture at-grade crossings. There are points in planning where you will have to work with what you got. Planners, Architects, and Engineers don't have the luxury of working in absolute terms. I'm sure TCR really thought it was possible to have no at-grade crossings at all, but then you get into the planning/design stage, and that absolute meets reality and reality wins out every time. Does that mean TCR lied? No it means they had an expectation that couldn't be met by reality. It could be any number of things from the slope of the track across a certain distance, to the need for crews to access the track from at grade locations, to a change in geography/terrain, costs, local regulations, etc... These things aren't black and white and if viewed from that kind of perspective ones expectations will be meet with failure each and every time. But again thats for those interested in this or focused on this to decide for themselves. I'm just some dude in the design business after all.

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58 minutes ago, Luminare said:

This also isn't just you, but I'm curious why everyone is so amazed that their are at-grade crossings? We have at grade crossings on every railroad in this country. Every country that I've been too that has HSR also has at some juncture at-grade crossings. There are points in planning where you will have to work with what you got. Planners, Architects, and Engineers don't have the luxury of working in absolute terms. I'm sure TCR really thought it was possible to have no at-grade crossings at all, but then you get into the planning/design stage, and that absolute meets reality and reality wins out every time. Does that mean TCR lied?

It's not that Deep Luminare. Drivers are idiots. Particularly in this state. When TCR said they would have viaducts for animal crossing I assumed they meant the Texas Motorist ;)

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20 minutes ago, Montrose1100 said:

It's not that Deep Luminare. Drivers are idiots. Particularly in this state. When TCR said they would have viaducts for animal crossing I assumed they meant the Texas Motorist ;)

Every state claims they have the worst motorists. Even people in Utah here say the traffic is bad, and the motorist are bad, but by far Utah has the best drivers, and lightest traffic I've seen. Do you want to know what are the craziest drivers? Arizona. Particularly Phoenix. That would be hilarious if they had crossing signs, but instead of people it was Ape's.

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11 minutes ago, Luminare said:

Every state claims they have the worst motorists. Even people in Utah here say the traffic is bad, and the motorist are bad, but by far Utah has the best drivers, and lightest traffic I've seen. Do you want to know what are the craziest drivers? Arizona. Particularly Phoenix. That would be hilarious if they had crossing signs, but instead of people it was Ape's.

Concur on Phoenix. The "Phoenix Slide" method of changing lanes definitely freaked me out the first couple months after I moved there for a co-op in college.

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I don't know that we can claim to have the worst drivers in the world, but I do think if there is an at grade crossing, someone will end up getting stuck there. it may happen very infrequently, but it will happen more frequently than if there were grade separated crossings.

I will also predict that when that collision does occur, many of the people who said this train was a bad idea will use that moment as a lightning rod of reason for why the project never should have happened in the first place.

then again, if they chose to make every crossing a grade separated crossing they'd be needing twice the money they need now.

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4 hours ago, Luminare said:

This also isn't just you, but I'm curious why everyone is so amazed that their are at-grade crossings? We have at grade crossings on every railroad in this country. Every country that I've been too that has HSR also has at some juncture at-grade crossings. There are points in planning where you will have to work with what you got. Planners, Architects, and Engineers don't have the luxury of working in absolute terms. I'm sure TCR really thought it was possible to have no at-grade crossings at all, but then you get into the planning/design stage, and that absolute meets reality and reality wins out every time. Does that mean TCR lied? No it means they had an expectation that couldn't be met by reality

Thanks for answering it for us Lumi. We can be surprised when we all initially thought there wouldn't be, and are now hearing for the first time that there are not only a few (good news!) but there was a point in planning where there was ~40! Hence the surprise/amazement. My surprise is not the same as disappointment; just surprised at new information.

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4 hours ago, texan said:

Concur on Phoenix. The "Phoenix Slide" method of changing lanes definitely freaked me out the first couple months after I moved there for a co-op in college.

The Phoenix Slide huh? Now that is a new one for me. Now I gotta see it in action the next time I'm down there. Is it anything like what you used to have to do to move from that off ramp of I-10 to get all the way to the farthest lane to get onto 290?

2 hours ago, samagon said:

I don't know that we can claim to have the worst drivers in the world, but I do think if there is an at grade crossing, someone will end up getting stuck there. it may happen very infrequently, but it will happen more frequently than if there were grade separated crossings.

I will also predict that when that collision does occur, many of the people who said this train was a bad idea will use that moment as a lightning rod of reason for why the project never should have happened in the first place.

then again, if they chose to make every crossing a grade separated crossing they'd be needing twice the money they need now.

From what I've observed thus far in Utah in comparison to Utahns....Houston drivers suck, or maybe its not that they suck, but there is an irreverence to the fact that others are driving around you and also have places to go or be. I think I've only heard one car honking at another car maybe a handful of times since I've been here. Its weird.

1 hour ago, BigFootsSocks said:

Thanks for answering it for us Lumi. We can be surprised when we all initially thought there wouldn't be, and are now hearing for the first time that there are not only a few (good news!) but there was a point in planning where there was ~40! Hence the surprise/amazement. My surprise is not the same as disappointment; just surprised at new information.

Its okay to be surprised haha. You have no idea how often this happens between us designers/architects and clients. Its just a fact that most people aren't able to see past their initial decisions or how they perceive things. I'm not special in that either I just know how what the impacts of certain design decisions will be or decisions generally in my work because its my field and what I know best. In my head that statement was always like...wow you think you won't have at-grade crossings...well give it a shot if you can, but I'm sure you probably will. You are right though and it hits home in how the design process works. Every client has a list of requirements. Some can be held too, some can't, and some can be compromised with. It used to be a high number and then probably after more compromises they were able to whittle that down to a number much few which is as close to keeping that promise as possible. If thats the best they can do in with the money, and time allowed then thats just how it has to be.

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On 9/9/2021 at 11:34 AM, Luminare said:

Every state claims they have the worst motorists. Even people in Utah here say the traffic is bad, and the motorist are bad, but by far Utah has the best drivers, and lightest traffic I've seen. Do you want to know what are the craziest drivers? Arizona. Particularly Phoenix. That would be hilarious if they had crossing signs, but instead of people it was Ape's.

Worst drivers I've been around are in Tampa, but even there I heard how Miami drivers are on a whole new level

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On 9/9/2021 at 10:05 AM, Luminare said:

You do understand we live in a different world right? Lets just say I know of an apartment job that recently got a bid price and the difference between what the original estimate was and what the actual bid price ended up being was somewhere around $40 million!

That was exactly my point.  I'm glad you understand it.  This should have been built before prices went up as much as they did, and they should now build this before prices go up any more.  Rail projects in the US are gradually becoming more and more unaffordable every year (and getting much much worse than most other countries, for a variety of reasons), so that's why I think we need to build this before it becomes completely unfeasible.

Doing the math, as it is, I have trouble seeing how investors can even justify $24b for this project with the expected ridership. If they wait any longer, I can't see this ever getting built.

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On 9/11/2021 at 6:19 PM, rechlin said:

Doing the math, as it is, I have trouble seeing how investors can even justify $24b for this project with the expected ridership. If they wait any longer, I can't see this ever getting built.

this is certainly the hope of the industries that are pushing the opposition for the project.

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