Train From Houston To Galveston?

[ehbowen]

At the risk of being nicknamed, "Zombieman"...

 

Reading through this old thread for the first time, what I keep coming back to is, "20/35 mph." There is no real reason whatsoever why this line couldn't be run at 79 or even 90 mph for passenger traffic, if the signaling system was reinstalled (it was taken out in the mid '90s...I used to live alongside that track, where it crossed Howard Drive). It's flat, it's straight; basically, it's been treated as a red-headed stepchild by Union Pacific since they bought it out via merger in the 1980s.

This gentleman had the right idea:

On 12/11/2017 at 11:27 AM, cspwal said:

I was curious if you could do a north south rail line, so I tried to map one out

 

Here's the overview: 

 

 

There's 3 stops in the Woodlands-Spring area, stop at IAH, stop downtown, stop at Hobby, and then 3 stops south of Houston.  Along the line that made the most sense to pick up Hobby, there's not much south of Pearland until you hit Galveston.

 

Getting to either airport via a commuter rail is more challenging than I first thought; going to IAH I had to cross undeveloped fields and hug the airport property line until I could get to JFK blvd - and even that I'm not sure you could stick heavy rail down.  (Dashed lines mean greenfield train tracks)

 

At Hobby, I got a little luckier that there's a train yard just west of the airport, and a disused ROW that I reused for my train line.

 

 

Downtown, instead of trying to squeze a station in at Burnett transit center or UH-D, I chose a spot that should be relatively easy - the pocket on the purple line in east downtown.  There's a train yard right there, so you could make a nice hub station there for commuter rail and the purple line.

 

For completeness, here is the path down to Galveston.  I put a p&r station at Alvin, and maybe one would make sense near 45, but there really isn't much between Pearland and Galveston on this line

 

 

Overall, a lot of work would have to be done to make this a viable commuter route (not including the fresh tracks to get to IAH and Hobby)

 - North of BWY 8 and south of 610, there's still plenty of single track lines that would have to be upgraded to double track to support commuter rail.

- To get fast service for the passenger trains, you'd have to convince Union Pacific to prioritize these trains.  Otherwise, you're stuck at 35 mph

- Countless grade crossings.

- Causeway is still single tracked?

A decent proposal, although I'd say that there's no reason to go through the expense of contorting your Right Of Way in order to provide door-to-door rail service to the airport. Much simpler and cheaper to have a dedicated circulator shuttle bus which makes regular stops at the rail depot and the airport terminal (as well as parking lots, Fixed Based Operators ['truck stops' for private planes], and the like). Or, as another commenter proposed, extend the IAH People Mover for the connection. And if you're talking spending this kind of money, no need to go all the way around Runways 14/32 at IAH; tunnelling under an airport runway is hardly an unprecedented construction project.

What I really like about this post is the south end: He has his route using the BNSF (former AT&SF/GC&SF) line past University of Houston (campus depot, anyone), Hobby Airport, and Alvin. This is not widely known, but this line still hosted passenger service up through April of 1967. And it was a fast line, too...after I wrote about the line some years back, a correspondent emailed me with his memory of racing that train up highway 35 in the early 1960s. He was doing 90 mph, and the train passed him! It's still signaled and maintained for 55 mph, and I can prove it, too:

That's a screenshot of my cell phone's GPS while riding as a passenger on that line for one of the Galveston Railroad Museum's excursions, this one from 2015 (I was a volunteer there). Smooth track, too; better than average for the Amtrak system as a whole (I've ridden more than half of that, as well).

This service could be done. It depends upon the will to do it. Would it be profitable? Well, is the Gulf Freeway profitable, standing on its own? If you could keep the grifters from bleeding it dry (greed isn't found exclusively in the private sector), I think it would be a worthwhile venture.

[cspwal]

Wow I didn’t remember I even posted that map. I do remember my thinking for door to door service - if one of the useful destinations is the airport, time matters, and waiting 15 minutes for a connection would make people less likely to use it. My idea as one of the customers for all week use would be travelers who don’t want to drive and pay airport parking prices on the other side of the city. 

[ehbowen]

If I were putting together this kind of service for-real, as practical transportation and not as some kind of grift or skim, here's where I'd put stations:

• Galveston Island, 25th and Strand. The former "Colored Waiting Room" of the Santa Fe station is NOT part of the Galveston Railroad Museum; I'd acquire rights to it and to the small parking area in the rear where I'd restore a platform and a couple of tracks.
• Virginia Point (Park & Ride). The train has to slow down here anyhow for the bridge; a passenger stop would add less than three minutes to the time altogether and would draw in commuters from Tiki Island, Texas City, La Marque and Hitchcock. Plenty of land (okay, swamp!) for a park & ride here.
• Alvin. I might consider relocating from the historic downtown depot to a new Park & Ride near Avenue I or thereabouts.
• Pearland South (Note: The railroad considers the container terminal outside Hobby Airport as "Pearland" these days). New Park & Ride located just off Magnolia Parkway. Alternate location off McHard Road.
• Clear Creek Station (new Park & Ride off Beltway 8). Plenty of room for parking and I'd leave facilities for interchange with bus routes.
• Mykawa Station (at Airport Boulevard) serving Hobby Airport via dedicated circulator bus.
• Dixie Drive. Good-sized industrial park located here; this could be a commute destination as well as pickup point for neighborhoods in vicinity.
• Old Spanish Trail. Serving University of Houston as well as a short walk to the MacGregor Park/MLK Purple Line station.
• Milby Street. Again, much commercial/industrial activity within walking distance, not to mention burgeoning residential redevelopment and nearby connections to bus and light rail.
• Downtown/Minute Maid Park (between Commerce and Runnels). Station for downtown, the stadiums, and EaDo.
• Near North Side (either Quitman or Collingsworth, possibly Cavalcade).
• Crosstimbers. As far north as you can go and put a station without ridiculous construction costs (rail line starts running in the median of the Hardy Toll Road).
• North Belt Park & Ride (at West Hardy and Aldine-Bender).
• IAH/Airtex. I'd put a Park & Ride in what looks like the big sand pits near there and extend the IAH Peoplemover (or similar) to serve it. Could be room enough for yards and maintenance facilities for the trains here, as well.
• Spring. End of the line...for now. For future expansion we could look at going either north to The Woodlands and Conroe or west to Magnolia and Tomball. Or both!

Editing To Add: This may seem like a lot of stations, but really it's not. Yes, freight trains really drag and take a lot of time to get up to speed, but passenger trains really get up and move! I have an Internet acquaintance who's a civil engineer specializing in high speed rail passenger service, and he says that each additional station stop adds possibly three minutes, plus the actual dwell time you spend standing in the station. The commuters would spend (lots!) more than that in traffic.

Edited August 15, 2023 by ehbowen

[hindesky]

This was probably already mentioned but there was a passenger train that ran along Hwy 3 that took passengers to Galveston. If I recall it was in the early to mid '80's but didn't do very well so it was shut down.

[ehbowen]

6 hours ago, hindesky said:

This was probably already mentioned but there was a passenger train that ran along Hwy 3 that took passengers to Galveston. If I recall it was in the early to mid '80's but didn't do very well so it was shut down.

It was known as the Texas Limited. It was popular as a novelty at first, but a few things combined to kill it.

• Amtrak didn't want it. The Texas Limited originally used the Amtrak station on Washington Avenue in downtown Houston, and at that time there was still a direct connector track which let traffic flow through to the Galveston main lines (it was demolished to make way for the present I-10 ramps terminating northeast of Minute Maid park). Amtrak, who I understand at that time was paying a rent of $100 per year to the railroad to use the station, squeezed the Texas Limited operators for every dime they could. Basically they were charging them based on the property value, plus all utility costs, plus maintenance, plus the cost of the Amtrak personnel staffing the station, plus a markup on top of all that. That's why the Texas Limited operation eventually left Downtown and built their own station in The Heights. But this added a couple more miles, plus delays sitting at switching towers, to a journey which already was too long for most day trippers.
• Union Pacific really didn't want it. First, they downgraded the line to Galveston to Class 2 track, which limited passenger operations to 35 mph. Then they removed the block signal system on the Galveston line to keep the speed limits low. Finally, they bought out the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas (the Katy) railroad, and demolished the Katy main line from Katy to Downtown in order to sell the right of way to the highway department for the I-10 expansion. This ensured that the Texas Limited could never come back in anything like its former form.
• The Texas Limited operators were essentially married to the GH&H (Galveston, Houston & Henderson, original name of the railroad running from Downtown through South Houston, League City, and Dickinson) route. I understand that they had real estate interests in League City and would not even consider any other possible routing. As was mentioned up-thread, the line down Mykawa through Alvin, although a few miles longer, is capable of much higher operating speeds even today and its ownership (in those days AT&SF, present day BNSF) was in general much friendlier to the idea of operating passenger services. Which isn't necessarily saying much, but the difference is noticed even by foreigners. I've corresponded with Mark Smith, The Man In Seat 61, and he said that from his (European/British) perspective he thought that the Amtrak trains operated over Union Pacific were poorly handled and dispatched, but that even he was positively impressed by the AT&SF/BNSF operated trains.