Linking together Dallas and Houston by high-speed rail has long been in discussion, running into various hurdles over nearly three decades. But last week, Amtrak announced that it has joined the conversation with Texas Central, the company behind the current project. The two companies are “exploring” a potential partnership that could help speed up the launch of a railway that would transport passengers along the 240-mile route in less than 90 minutes.
Under current plans, trains would run every 30 minutes during peak times and hourly during off-peak times, with six hours off each night. The Dallas station would be in its Cedars neighborhood and Houston’s in the northwestern part of the city, with one stop in between at Brazos Valley, which would have shuttle service to Texas A&M University.
“It’s a revival to a very viable project on an enormously popular route,” says Andy Kunz, president and CEO of US High Speed Rail Association. “It’s highly congested on the highways, and flying is not very practical because of how short the flight is and how long you end up spending in each airport, so high-speed rail ends up being the winning mode between those cites.”
With about 100,000 people traveling between the two cities more than once a week, the ability to connect two of Texas’s biggest cities—which are also two of the nation’s top 10 most populous cities—is more than a convenience, but a need.
Kunz adds that climate change and aviation industry issues “increases the urgency” of building the system as an alternative. “High-speed rail can operate right through blizzards, fog, fires, and all kinds of conditions,” he says. From an environmental standpoint, Amtrak says, the project is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100,000 tons annually, removing 12,500 vehicles from Interstate 45 daily, and saving 65 million gallons of fuel.
Yet logistical red tape have kept things from forging ahead. “The Texas Central project got bogged down in local lawsuits and lengthy federal permitting processes, which consumed too much of the startup’s capital reserves,” Sean Jeans-Gail, Rail Passengers Association’s vice president of government affairs and policy says, noting the organization has seen similar problems with other US intercity projects and is working with Congress to help these new rail services launch more easily.
Amtrak had been working with Texas Central on different initiatives since 2016, including a unified ticketing system. But last week’s announcement is a major step as they’re “currently evaluating a potential partnership to further study and potentially advance the project.”
The collaboration could be mutually beneficial. Since Amtrak is a government entity, it opens up the opportunity for Texas Central to apply for federal grants and loans, which the private company couldn’t have done on its own. Conversely, it also “catapults Amtrak into a new level of looking at world class high-speed rail rather than what we’ve had so far, which is pretty much a leftover slow rail system from decades ago,” Kunz says.
