Texas Central Project

[Jay123]

15 hours ago, tigereye said:

Any chance we can make NW Mall station intermodal with a bus station serving all national carriers (Greyhound, MegaBus, FlixBus, etc)? Then combine this a Metro Transit Center serving Silver Line & Inner Katy BRT and a bus transit center. A complete national & regional ground transportation hub… all connected by multiple highways surrounding Northwest Mall. This should exist in reality. 

Considering greyhound lease is up next year and might need a bigger structure than the current one.

[samagon]

6 hours ago, Montrose1100 said:

If we're fantasying, They should partner with the Post, and make it an Intermodal Transit Center, which would really boost everything about both projects. The Post could develop more commercial space, residential, and hotels. Truly a mixed-use development. 

Could easily build a pedestrian bridge to the UH Downtown Red line station.

 

and while we're in fantasyland, they need to add a London Eye sized ferris wheel on that plaza where Congress street meets Franklin (Google calls it the Barbara Jordan Front Plaza)...

Edited August 10, 2023 by samagon

[Texasota]

That's not transit related.

Now some kind of gondola on the other hand...

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

yes, let's move the Amtrak station out to NW Mall. When was the last time y'all tried to find it, and how much damage did the terrible access road do to your car trying to drive down it...

[samagon]

I went like 10 years ago when some big steam train was in town. it was cool.

[Big E]

On 8/9/2023 at 1:47 PM, wilcal said:

Amtrak and Texas Central exploring partnership to bring high-speed rail to Texas

https://media.amtrak.com/2023/08/texas-central-and-amtrak-seek-to-explore-high-speed-rail-service-opportunities-between-dallas-and-houston/

Not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, this is the first remotely positive news we've heard about this in a while. On the other hand, its Amtrak. 

[Jay123]

Didn’t amtrak get several billions of the infrastructure law?They could use that money and revive the SA to Austin rail project too.Texas needs regional rail.

[JClark54]

I think this project's success hinges on track ownership. If Amtrak hopes to utilize others' lines via trackage rights agreements -- like it does currently for all routes through Texas and many other southern states -- I presume it will underwhelm or, worse, never materialize. 

 

Barriers to its success in Texas are the freight rail company operating practices. Lines are blocked regularly, or Amtrak trains are directed into sidings -- as a secondary user, the line owner's consists get preferential treatment. To what degree, if any, Union Pacific is obligated to accommodate Amtrak trains on the Sunset Limited route is playing out now. Amtrak currently relies upon UP's Freight Main Line, sometimes called the Terminal Line, to transit through Houston en route to San Antonio or New Orleans. 

One outcome could include penalties to UP for allegedly not honoring trackage rights agreements, but another could be Amtrak is out (this is likely extreme, but it's what UP wants to do and likely will do if it gets a favorable judgement.)

People on this forum have pointed to Amtrak in other states when I bring up the unique arraignment in Texas. Yes, it's true. Amtrak has a much better on-time arrival rating in northern and west coast states, but that's because it has an ownership stake in the lines upon which it operates. 

I presume Texas Central knew this, as the organization's original stated goal was to build new lines. Hence, the fight with landowners and the Texas AG challenging whether it was an actual railroad in attempt to bar its ability to use eminent domain. 

If Amtrak builds lines, that will avoid the freight rail fight and enable service timing to be under its control. But it begs the question of where will the lines go in the inner loop?

It's been well-documented that freight rail haven't invested in infrastructure because, well, the industry isn't penalized for blocking public street crossings. So yards haven't been expanded and lines haven't been double-tracked or triple-tracked continuously, leaving areas where many tracks bottleneck to a single line.

Development, by nature, has moved up to that right of way. As a result, expansion would mean acquiring buildings, some of which people on this forum wax poetically about. 

Take the fantasy of moving the Amtrak station to Post. That is 100 percent a great idea, but in reality that's very unlikely to happen.

Literally a few hundred feet from the Post, the freight rail line drops to a single track and is surrounded by retaining walls for UH-D. There are many stretches with similar tight sections on that line, which makes expansion to accommodate more lines costly and, likely, will be challenging to get the public to accept. 

That line also connects with the West Belt as it leaves UP Congress Yard following the Galveston Sub merger. The West Belt is Houston's most trafficked line at up to 75 trains per day, trains switch at Tower 26 to the line behind Post when going to western end destinations.

UP isn't going to permit a passenger train to idle on that stretch of line behind Post, blocking traffic from the West Belt and Galveston Subdivision. The Amtrak station is currently further down that same line, but on a bypass, and UP already wants Amtrak out. 

I am not a passenger rail opponent. Actually, quite the opposite. I just understand who owns the lines here and their perception of passenger rail. For it to work, it'd take building new lines, which has its own challenges. 

That's possibly why the mall has been the expected station destination. Close to the Eureka Line running along Hempstead Highway. That has a really, really wide ROW and less development encroachment, so further widening to support dedicated high-speed lines may be possible. 

Edited August 11, 2023 by JClark54

[BEES?!]

I’m far from a train expert, but it sounds like they still want to use the Shinkansen stock, at least from their press release. I’m betting that they won’t be track sharing with UP or anyone if that’s still the case.

I also wonder if it’s an ROW thing with Amtrak. But this is all pure speculation on my part. 

[JClark54]

22 minutes ago, BEES?! said:

I’m far from a train expert, but it sounds like they still want to use the Shinkansen stock, at least from their press release. I’m betting that they won’t be track sharing with UP or anyone if that’s still the case.

I also wonder if it’s an ROW thing with Amtrak. But this is all pure speculation on my part. 

Yes, I agree. There's no way trains capable of reaching 200 mph will share with freight rail. It'd have to be separate. 

My guess is the partnership occurred because Amtrak has the ability to apply for Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds.

https://media.amtrak.com/2023/06/amtrak-applies-for-7-3-billion-in-federal-grants-to-advance-northeast-corridor-infrastructure-upgrades/

Those could be leveraged to build owned lines from a new location, freeing Amtrak from its current Houston situation. It wrote in a recent filing the current location and agreement with UP, BNSF is untenable. Since UP has written it has no intention of altering its scheduling to accommodate Amtrak, I presume it will continue to fight change.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by JClark54

[Big E]

On 8/11/2023 at 4:32 PM, BEES?! said:

I’m far from a train expert, but it sounds like they still want to use the Shinkansen stock, at least from their press release. I’m betting that they won’t be track sharing with UP or anyone if that’s still the case.

The Shinkansen literally never use the same lines as slower freight traffic (with the exception of a single tunnel) in Japan. If they use bullet trains, they will have to run on their own dedicated lines, just like it does in Japan. Conversely, this also means that Amtrak won't be able to track share either, unless they are investing in their own Shinkansen trains (fat chance). Their rail lines also lack any and all at-grade crossings (which is why every road crossing has the trains on viaducts in the original plans.

[editor]

8 hours ago, Big E said:

The Shinkansen literally never use the same lines as slower freight traffic (with the exception of a single tunnel) in Japan. If they use bullet trains, they will have to run on their own dedicated lines, just like it does in Japan. Conversely, this also means that Amtrak won't be able to track share either, unless they are investing in their own Shinkansen trains (fat chance). Their rail lines also lack any and all at-grade crossings (which is why every road crossing has the trains on viaducts in the original plans.

I watch a show on NHK called Japan Railway Journal, and in a recent episode they explained that the main reason Japan can't run trains faster than they currently do isn't because of anything involving the mechanics of the trains or the tracks, but because of the noise they generate at higher speeds.  According to the show, the focus right now on many of the HSR routes in Japan is noise abatement so they can speed up the trains.

Not applicable to Texas, but I thought it was interesting.

[Ross]

We went to the UK for 10 days at the beginning of the month. We rode the train from London to Edinburgh. It's 450 miles and takes 4 1/2 hours using the Hitachi Azuma trainsets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_801

The top speed is 125mph, so the tracks don't have to be super special. 

It strikes me that this would be a better solution than the bullet trains. The RoW could run up 45, and the curve radius restrictions would be less of an issue. 2 hours or so to Dallas on a comfortable train soundsreasonable.

[ADCS]

Shinkansen means "new trunk line". The concept is specifically that they're separate from legacy lines.

Amtrak just updated their 280 mile line from Chicago to St. Louis to handle 110 mph operation, and it still takes 4:30, about the same as driving. A 125 mph line on I-45 would likely still take ~3:45 to go the 245 mi, making it uncompetitive with air for business travel (especially last-minute business travel).

[mfastx]

If we're just talking about the "last mile" between the proposed NW transit center station and downtown, there doesn't need to be crazy fast fancy tracks for that stretch. Normal 79mph operation that already exists for Amtrak today would be fine. I'd imagine you'd just build an additional, electrified track within the same ROW and that'd be fine. You could use one-way operation for it. 

[wilcal]

I don't think there is any chance of them extending the HSR to downtown. They will be much more likely to come up with a solution to connect it to the BRT at NWTC.

Some talk on Twitter about how it wouldn't be that hard to move the existing Amtrak station to the HSR terminus.

[BeerNut]

On 8/13/2023 at 4:27 PM, Ross said:

We went to the UK for 10 days at the beginning of the month. We rode the train from London to Edinburgh. It's 450 miles and takes 4 1/2 hours using the Hitachi Azuma trainsets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_801

The top speed is 125mph, so the tracks don't have to be super special. 

It strikes me that this would be a better solution than the bullet trains. The RoW could run up 45, and the curve radius restrictions would be less of an issue. 2 hours or so to Dallas on a comfortable train soundsreasonable.

Instead of running into eminent domain issues with rural landowners they would have issues with businesses along 45 until they get past Conroe.  The TCR alignment avoided this by running elevated along the Hempstead railway.  

Your route alignment would be great for a TXDOT project since they own ROW(only they know future expansion plans) and could stop at smaller cities along the way to get their buy in.  Could even make a stop at the Greenspoint Mall to allow people to utilize long term parking, rental car, and airport.  And for people saying all those stops would make for a longer ride just have express trains with zero stops.

[cougarpad]

Too bad we didn't get through all the lawsuits and regulations and have this thing built for when World Cup comes to Texas.

[Big E]

So yeah, I was watching this video on the Texas Central Project and all the controversies its currently undergoing, and I saw an interesting comment:

 

Quote

Amtrak, along with the "now on board" TexDOT railroad division (I kid you not!) has applied to the FRA to get funds for implementing the fabled "Texas Triangle" segmented rail line. Amtrak's plan is to bypass a couple of the major obstacles befalling the Texas Central Plan, namely the "eminent domain" backlash, and the objection of rural communities that this just a "big city" benefit; well, that plus all the federal bucks that could finally be had for rail projects in the state.

They plan on doing all this by taking what many view as the most common sense approach, which is to utilize federal right-of-way by putting in track on the medians of four of the Interstate highways that run through the state, namely a section of I-30 that runs between Fort Worth and Dallas, I-35 that runs from Fort Worth (through the population centers of Waco and Austin) down to San Antonio, I-45 that runs from Dallas to Houston (through Corsicana and Bryan/College Station, and finally I-10 that runs from Houston to San Antonio (with a proposed mid-way stop in rural Flatonia, Texas).

Texas Central has gone on record saying that the reason they didn't choose the Interstate option for their line was that I-45 was a bit too "curvy" to facilitate trains that ran at 165 m/h, but a slightly slower Amtrak Acela trainset could work there. Because the Amtrak plan includes this and a number of other advantages (like significantly better "last-mile" connectivity at the railheads) to the Texas Central plan, it looks like the Amtrak/TexDOT proposal has a very good shot at receiving approval from the Feds!

The big question is whether Amtrak is going to promote this plan as a full-blown "high speed rail" proposal, or just as a "higher speed" rail system, utilizing one of the new Acela Liberty dual-powered train sets. While it wouldn't be technically considered HSR, having a "faster" train that topped out at around 160 m/h on some sections would still be a big deal. Having a sleeker, faster, "cooler looking" train that could make any of the three legs in a little over two hours, as opposed to the eight hours a current Amtrak train takes to make the Fort Worth to San Antonio run. The Texas Central proposal called for a transit time of an hour and a half.

Can any one confirm this? If what this comment says is true, this sounds less like a partnership between Amtrak and Texas Central and more a traditional "higher speed" train like the Acela Line in the Northeast that is controlled entirely by Amtrak, maybe in addition to Texas Central line. Apparently, this line is supposed to be called the "Texas Triangle". Being that this is Amtrak, and calling the Acela a "high speed train" is a joke on the best of days, I hold out little hope of it succeeding.

Also, supposedly Brightline is in fact looking to open a line in the same Dallas to Houston corridor, using the exact same building process they are doing for Brightline West, but they haven't made any public announcements yet. 

At this point, I wonder if all of these projects could actually coexist in a single corridor, especially with driving, long distance bus service, and air travel still being options. Seems like they would be actively competing for ridership and potentially cannibalizing a market.

[Texasota]

I think there's real potential for 2-3 parallel options actually improving the market rather than cannibalizing it. More price points and more frequent trains = potentially much better service. Frequency matters, even for these longer distance regional routes. 

If multiple providers mean there's a train leaving for Dallas every 30 minutes, then that makes it a much easier last minute decision. 

If you can choose between a 3 hour train ride or a 2 hour train ride for %50 more (or whatever), then that opens up options for more people. That hour will still be worth paying for for a lot of people (myself included), but having the cheaper option that is still no slower than driving is huge for expanding the market. 

[Big E]

3 hours ago, Texasota said:

I think there's real potential for 2-3 parallel options actually improving the market rather than cannibalizing it. More price points and more frequent trains = potentially much better service. Frequency matters, even for these longer distance regional routes. 

If multiple providers mean there's a train leaving for Dallas every 30 minutes, then that makes it a much easier last minute decision. 

If you can choose between a 3 hour train ride or a 2 hour train ride for %50 more (or whatever), then that opens up options for more people. That hour will still be worth paying for for a lot of people (myself included), but having the cheaper option that is still no slower than driving is huge for expanding the market. 

That last sentence is key. I don't think the slower trains will be able to compete because they won't be as fast as driving. The trains will move slowly, making driving potentially faster, and whenever you get to your destination, you will still have to rent a car to move around anywhere in either Dallas or Houston due to the lack of mass transit, so its not necessarily more convenient than just driving in the first place. The main selling point for Texas Central was using Bullet Trains that were specifically much faster than cars, and could even compete with plane travel on time, but lacked the hassle of trying to take a plane (like dealing with the TSA and the sorry state of most American airlines).

I think anything Amtrak tries to do is dead in the water for that reason. A slower train will not be able to compete with auto travel or plane travel (which is why passenger train travel died in the U.S. in the first place), the Texas legislature will never support train development or the expansion of Amtrak, the Republican controlled house will never support train development or the expansion of Amtrak, train expansion isn't a pressing issue for Democrats in either the state or federal government either way, the cargo railroads will never allow Amtrak to use their tracks and interfere with their train service, and Amtrak will never be able to fund building a track anywhere near the existing interstates when it already loses money.

[samagon]

20 hours ago, Big E said:

That last sentence is key. I don't think the slower trains will be able to compete because they won't be as fast as driving. The trains will move slowly, making driving potentially faster, and whenever you get to your destination, you will still have to rent a car to move around anywhere in either Dallas or Houston due to the lack of mass transit, so its not necessarily more convenient than just driving in the first place. The main selling point for Texas Central was using Bullet Trains that were specifically much faster than cars, and could even compete with plane travel on time, but lacked the hassle of trying to take a plane (like dealing with the TSA and the sorry state of most American airlines).

there's a calculator on SAP Concur (a very common expense portal used in business) that shows the break points for a trip car vs rental vs flight. and most companies are going to make you take the cheapest option. so if they would reimburse me $280ish to drive my car from Houston to Dallas and back, but a rental is $100 (plus $50 for gas or whatever), they are going to make me rent a car (this depends on how many days I have the rental).

if there's a train, and the ticket is $75 round trip, round trip uber is $50, it's now magically the cheaper travel option, and guess what they're going to make me do? that's right, take the train. every time. there's people in my company who do that trip once a week. this isn't a unique situation.

that's for business travel. from a business perspective, if the price is right, it doesn't matter if the travel time matches, or is faster than a car, it matters that it will be predictable and the least expensive option.

for personal travel, or just for the weekend, or whatever, it really will depend on how long it takes, and each person has to do the calculus from there. do you have a family that needs to stop every hour for a bathroom break? does traffic on a long journey induce a lot of stress? is there a lunch break in there?

Edited August 23, 2023 by samagon

[Texasota]

Even if Amtrak switches to Acela trainsets, as long as they use dedicated rail and dont add too many stations it will still be faster than driving. The old Acela trains are rated at 150mph, and I believe the new ones are rated at 185mph.

Even with tons of stations and bottlenecks the Acela (and even just the NE corridor in general) is usually faster than driving, even if it's not really true high speed rail. 

The other example is Amtrak's Keystone line in PA. Not "high speed" and it uses old trains, but it does use dedicated rail and is almost aways comparable to driving at worst. 

[BEES?!]

That comment was also made 4 months ago, so it may not be accurate to what’s happening behind the scenes. It sounds like Texas Central is still involved, so there’s that. 

[Big E]

3 hours ago, samagon said:

there's a calculator on SAP Concur (a very common expense portal used in business) that shows the break points for a trip car vs rental vs flight. and most companies are going to make you take the cheapest option. so if they would reimburse me $280ish to drive my car from Houston to Dallas and back, but a rental is $100 (plus $50 for gas or whatever), they are going to make me rent a car (this depends on how many days I have the rental).

if there's a train, and the ticket is $75 round trip, round trip uber is $50, it's now magically the cheaper travel option, and guess what they're going to make me do? that's right, take the train. every time. there's people in my company who do that trip once a week. this isn't a unique situation.

that's for business travel. from a business perspective, if the price is right, it doesn't matter if the travel time matches, or is faster than a car, it matters that it will be predictable and the least expensive option.

for personal travel, or just for the weekend, or whatever, it really will depend on how long it takes, and each person has to do the calculus from there. do you have a family that needs to stop every hour for a bathroom break? does traffic on a long journey induce a lot of stress? is there a lunch break in there?

This hypothetical assumes a few thing. First, it assumes you rent a car for the trip rather than just use your own. In the latter case, you just need the company to reimburse you for gas, which would potentially be cheaper than a train ticket, but if I rent a car, the company would have to reimburse me for the cost of the rental, driving the price up. It also ignores the fact that the train only gets you to your destination. Once you arrive in Houston (or Dallas), you still need to rent a car to get around. Which means your paying for a rental either way. So your probably not saving money either way.

 

1 hour ago, Texasota said:

Even if Amtrak switches to Acela trainsets, as long as they use dedicated rail and dont add too many stations it will still be faster than driving. The old Acela trains are rated at 150mph, and I believe the new ones are rated at 185mph.

Even with tons of stations and bottlenecks the Acela (and even just the NE corridor in general) is usually faster than driving, even if it's not really true high speed rail. 

The other example is Amtrak's Keystone line in PA. Not "high speed" and it uses old trains, but it does use dedicated rail and is almost aways comparable to driving at worst. 

Once again, this ignores that a train only gets you to your destination. The difference between Acela and any train that operates in Texas is that Acela operates in the Northeast, where most major cities have very good public transport, like subways, so will conceivably never need to use a car. In Texas, the train will only get you where you need to go. You still need to drive once you get into the city, which means you will need to rent a car either way, weakening any potential benefit of taking the train. Also, even though Acela trains are rated at those speeds, they hardly ever travel that fast, except for one relatively short section rail. Most of the time, they travel no faster than normal trains. Whether or not they actually travel that fast in Texas is questionable.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Big E

[Ross]

28 minutes ago, Big E said:

This hypothetical assumes a few thing. First, it assumes you rent a car for the trip rather than just use your own. In the latter case, you just need the company to reimburse you for gas, which would potentially be cheaper than a train ticket, but if I rent a car, the company would have to reimburse me for the cost of the rental, driving the price up. It also ignores the fact that the train only gets you to your destination. Once you arrive in Houston (or Dallas), you still need to rent a car to get around. Which means your paying for a rental either way. So your probably not saving money either way.

 

Once again, this ignores that a train only gets you to your destination. The difference between Acela and any train that operates in Texas is that Acela operates in the Northeast, where most major cities have very good public transport, like subways, so will conceivably never need to use a car. In Texas, the train will only get you where you need to go. You still need to drive once you get into the city, which means you will need to rent a car either way, weakening any potential benefit of taking the train. Also, even though Acela trains are rated at those speeds, they hardly ever travel that fast, except for one relatively short section rail. Most of the time, they travel no faster than normal trains. Whether or not they actually travel that fast in Texas is questionable.

Companies do not reimburse gas only. They use the IRS mileage rate for use of personal vehicles for business. For a round trip to Dallas with some in Dallas miles, let's say the total is 540 miles. At the current rate of 65 cents per mile, that's $351. Using a personal vehicle for business also opens up the company to more liability than using a rental car. That's some of the reasons my employer makes us fly to Dallas and take Ubers.

There is no way I would use my car for company business without getting the full IRS rate. Why should I have to eat the non-fuel costs like tires, depreciation, etc?

[Texasota]

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but the speed restrictions on Acela are due to bottlenecks, old/bad track geometry, and arguably too many stops, and it's still as fast as driving or faster.

Whether Amtrak uses the Texas Central ROW or I-45 ROW, and whether they use Shinkansens or Acela, as long as they have dedicated ROW, none of those problems will apply. 

[samagon]

1 hour ago, Big E said:

This hypothetical assumes a few thing. First, it assumes you rent a car for the trip rather than just use your own. In the latter case, you just need the company to reimburse you for gas, which would potentially be cheaper than a train ticket, but if I rent a car, the company would have to reimburse me for the cost of the rental, driving the price up. It also ignores the fact that the train only gets you to your destination. Once you arrive in Houston (or Dallas), you still need to rent a car to get around. Which means your paying for a rental either way. So your probably not saving money either way.

there's nothing hypothetical about this situation. it's real life, and I deal with it any time I take a trip to San Antonio, Austin, or Dallas.

any time you use your personal vehicle for business travel (that isn't your normal office commute), you are expensing the mileage. $0.655 per mile right now. this mileage rate reimbursement factors in gas (so you don't expense that), apps like Concur do the mileage calcs for you, and you can submit the expense for mileage. driving around town to visit customers is a great example of mileage expenses, but when you get into intercity travel, things change.

240 miles from Houston to Dallas, so 480 miles round trip, $314 they are reimbursing if you take your car. if I rent a car for 2 days it will be less than that, my company will tell me to rent a car, and expense the gas.

if there's a train, and it costs less for the train/uber vs rental/gas, you better believe they will make the employee take the train. not to mention that time sitting on a train is now productive time on calls, answering emails, doing normal business that would otherwise be impacted by having to concentrate on the whole driving thing. 

so the only hypothetical in this equation is that my boss may recognize that even if the train ride costs a bit more, they may tell me that I need to take the train anyway, just so I stay productive during that time.

and yeah, if my boss finds out about Vonlane, I might end up taking a bus.

Edited August 23, 2023 by samagon

[Arboosto]

1 hour ago, samagon said:

not to mention that time sitting on a train is now productive time on calls, answering emails, doing normal business that would otherwise be impacted by having to concentrate on the whole driving thing.

In my opinion, this is the biggest factor. If an engineering company needs to send an SME for a critical meeting in Dallas, they're going to bill their travel time. 8 hours of driving at $200/hr is $1600. Losing that much productive time heavily tips the scales to a travel option where they can be productive.

[Amlaham]

23 hours ago, samagon said:

if there's a train, and it costs less for the train/uber vs rental/gas, you better believe they will make the employee take the train. not to mention that time sitting on a train is now productive time on calls, answering emails, doing normal business that would otherwise be impacted by having to concentrate on the whole driving thing. 

so the only hypothetical in this equation is that my boss may recognize that even if the train ride costs a bit more, they may tell me that I need to take the train anyway, just so I stay productive during that time.

and yeah, if my boss finds out about Vonlane, I might end up taking a bus.

A little off topic, but I believe a lot of other big cities have adopted incentives for big companies to persuade employees to use trains/ public transportation when traveling home/ offices! The incentives even includes discounting gym memberships within the immediate area to push more employees to stay local and not drive if they don't have to. I think Chicago just passed something like that. Maybe one day we'll get there (but I doubt it)