As you know, I’ve been following the ins and outs of Texas Central Railway and its efforts to build a high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas since it was first proposed several years ago. Along the way, the proposal has picked up some dedicated opposition, mostly in rural counties where the line would pass through, and from the Representatives and Senators in those counties. Last week, a slate of bills were filed with the express intent of at least slowing down, if not killing, the train project. I’ve sort of made it a mission to talk to people involved with issues that are getting a lot of attention this legislative session, so of course I wanted to speak to someone at Texas Central about them and the bills that are aimed at them. Holly Reed is the managing director of external affairs for Texas Central Partners, LLC, so it’s her job to work with the Legislature on issues like this. I talked with her recently about how TCR is dealing with this slate of bills and other related items. One clarification, when I asked about the Surface Transportation Board, Texas Central is not seeking to ask the Board to reconsider its decision to not provide oversight during the approvals process, but that if things change then Texas Central could re-evaluate. With that, here is what we talked about:
Let me know what you think.
I don’t understand why the TCR doesn’t simply buy an existing short-line or even a spur railroad using some of that vast amount of funding that they say they have available, and render all the eminent domain objections moot. Are there no independent short line railroads left in Texas?
Maybe someday, Red will be able to get on a train in Texas – like people in most of the rest of the developed world – and go somewhere with some confidence in departing and arriving on time. The last time Red rode a real train in Texas was in 1960 when he and his mother took the train from Austin to San Antonio. If Trump is really serious about rebuilding our infrastructure, high speed trains would be a great place to start. We are so far behind in this technology that it should be embarrassing.