Well we won't this time because this one won't happen. Tx Central RR is broke, they may still have 1 full time employee, the board disbanded, and they're behind on property taxes in (I think) every county asking the proposed route last year. Last year they also began quietly selling off properties.

Drillbit4 said:

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The $30B price tag was from 10 years ago. It's easily 50% higher now. And when was the last time a major infrastructure project came in under budget? This will swell to being billions over budget and tax payers will foot the bill.

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That makes senses. $30B seemed low compared to the cost of new road projects announced.

Just think, if the tickets are cheap enough (subsidized) criminals could use quickly travel and do their jobs between Soros DA areas!! They could pull a few jobs en route as well, which would then eliminate those customers from riding any more.

Seriously, when politicians start yapping about this again, journalists need to do their job and figure out why. Investigate these people and find the $$$. I'd bet they are related to someone who could profit(land sale, contractor, legal, etc) OR be the recipient of campaign contributions or something. There will be a reason.

In independent-minded, freedom-loving Texas where we drive ourselves and with all of the travel technology happening - this makes zero sense.

AggieCo2023 said:

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There's literally perfect functioning trains in several other states lol. Why can't Texas do something Japan and Europe can?

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Because we don't travel like that. There is no functional mass transit system as we are too spread out. At least for now, thankfully

Anyone who supports a train system lacks critical thinking skills

Dan Scott said:

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Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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$30B seems like a good deal. I-45 expansion project is 10 years $10B only about 15 miles

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That project is projected to be just under $8B and has a much higher proportion of it in an urban area than the train would. They don't serve the same purpose at all either, not sure why you brought it up.

Not comparable

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It's $10B. The virtue signaling delays added another $2B. Brought it up because $10B over 10 years for 15 miles of roadwork seems outrageously high.

Another example, they are adding 1 lane on each side of Grandparkway from 249 to i-45. It's about 12 miles. It's going to take 3.5 years to compete.

Point being transportation projects are a huge cluster. I doubt the interstate highway project would be as successful if it started today vs 70 years ago.

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Project website still shows $7.9B.

https://www.txdot.gov/nhhip/updates.html

Highly urban interchanges are going to cost considerably more than green field project in the middle of nowhere.

You're correct the interstate system would take considerably longer and be more expensive than it was in the 50s. This is largely due to contract complexity and it's impact on design depth.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/I45-expansion-project-back-on-17663766.php

Project won't start until 2024 the earliest. 5 years after TXdot finalized the design. Over 10 year since TXdot started the process. And the federal government still hasn't signed off.

Paywall

Wearer of the Ring said:

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The idea of "houston to dallas" makes it sound like those are points. DFW and houston each cover 100s of square miles. riders on this train will wake up in Forney, have to drive 20 or 30 miles to the station, park, wait for the train, ride to downtown houston and then Uber 30 miles to Katy. All that wasted time. And the extra bits of travel won't be cheap. Please don't pretend the train will run at 200 mph. It will not be feasible except for the gen z incels who live within a mile or two of each downtown station.

But the biggest flaw in this scam is that the train won't stop at Buc ee's.

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But what if it had a Buc-ees Car?

captkirk said:

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Admiral Adama said:

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Southwest round-trip Lovefield to Hobby $240.
Bullet train $30B / $240 = 125,000,000 round trips.
DFW and Houston metro combined populations: 15 million
Round trips per person: 8.3

For the same cost as building the bullet train we could give every single person living in the Houston and Dallas metros eight round trip flights on Southwest. What a bargain for the Texas tax payer.

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That is if you can build it for 30B. How is CA doing vs. original budget?

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10x and rising. With any luck the highly profitable and very in demand Bakersfield to Fresno route will be completed by 2035, only 15 years later than the $9B budget sold to the taxpayers. No lessons for Texas to glean here.

fka ftc said:

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Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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fka ftc said:

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The WFH / remote working is fading faster than it came on. See massive layoffs in tech and other areas as the bets that WFH was here to stay are all busting.,

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I didn't say or mean people that WFH. This train has a minimum travel time of 90 minutes from station to station. With all the other added time, that would be well over 2 hours from somewhere in DFW metro to somewhere in Houston metro one way. That isn't a reasonable daily commute for most people. This would service people that have to go from one to the other for occasional business reasons, and I think virtual meetings, unlike mass WFH, are here to stay to cut down on travel costs.

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Slightly off topic, but I take JSX from Love to Hobby 3-4 times a month on day trips. I can leave my house in FloMo and be in my office in Rosharon in just over 2 hours. Leave my house 9:30, board flight 10:05, land about 11:10, rental car 11:15 and sitting pretty in Rosharon about 11:40. Reverse that on way home leaving office at 7:30 and home by 10pm. For about $550-$600 all in.

Point being, folks that need to be physically present have options.

I actually would support rail or similar, but the Texas Central is a poorly thought out solution looking for a non-existent problem.

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What office in tiny Rosharon are you talking about? The town is bigger than it was when I was regularly traveling through that area from SW Houston to Lake Jackson, but even now, the only thing I can think of there is local retail and a grain silo.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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AlaskanAg99 said:

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Manhattan said:

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Nobody would be losing any land.

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So then why is eminent domain needed?

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If this train puts down so much as one drop of concrete on any ranch or farm land between Houston and Dallas, then the land owners have lost land. That poster is flat out lying.

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Oh no, a viaduct running through farm and ranch land… unlike the neighborhoods we are bulldozing for I45 and other highway in the US.

But seeing your username, you must really love highways.

AggieCo2023 said:

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You don't think the city can run a shuttle from the train station to campus/downtown? Hell they run a shuttle from the mall to Santa's wonderland lol

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OK, let's review. Say I live in, for example, Friendswood (thoughts and prayers for me) and want to go to College Station for the weekend.

I'm going to spend an hour driving to NW Houston, parking, and making sure I'm on time for the train, then pay what, $25, to park my car plus $100 for my round trip train ticket?

Then I ride the choo-choo for 25 minutes and hop off for my 30 minute shuttle ride to College Station (assuming the shuttle is there when I get there, of course). In the time already spent, I could have already driven to College Station.

But since I didn't, here one of two things happens: either the shuttle takes me to a "central stop" on campus, where I guess I can walk to Sbisa for dinner because I don't have a car, or perhaps in light of the ones of passengers on this route maybe it will take me where I actually want to go. And then I can get an Uber to a restaurant and back, because, yeah, no car.

Profit??

Manhattan said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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AlaskanAg99 said:

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Manhattan said:

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Nobody would be losing any land.

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So then why is eminent domain needed?

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If this train puts down so much as one drop of concrete on any ranch or farm land between Houston and Dallas, then the land owners have lost land. That poster is flat out lying.

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Oh no, a viaduct running through farm and ranch land… unlike the neighborhoods we are bulldozing for I45 and other highway in the US.

But seeing your username, you must really love highways.

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You think the entire thing will be elevated?!

Did they every pay their property taxes that were delinquent?

Manhattan said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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AlaskanAg99 said:

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Manhattan said:

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Nobody would be losing any land.

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So then why is eminent domain needed?

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If this train puts down so much as one drop of concrete on any ranch or farm land between Houston and Dallas, then the land owners have lost land. That poster is flat out lying.

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Oh no, a viaduct running through farm and ranch land… unlike the neighborhoods we are bulldozing for I45 and other highway in the US.

But seeing your username, you must really love highways.

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The train won't stop or take any pressure off of 45. If you like trains so much, don't expand 45 and bulldoze those hoods for train tracks then

YokelRidesAgain said:

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AggieCo2023 said:

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You don't think the city can run a shuttle from the train station to campus/downtown? Hell they run a shuttle from the mall to Santa's wonderland lol

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OK, let's review. Say I live in, for example, Friendswood (thoughts and prayers for me) and want to go to College Station for the weekend.

I'm going to spend an hour driving to NW Houston, parking, and making sure I'm on time for the train, then pay what, $25, to park my car plus $100 for my round trip train ticket?

Then I ride the choo-choo for 25 minutes and hop off for my 30 minute shuttle ride to College Station (assuming the shuttle is there when I get there, of course). In the time already spent, I could have already driven to College Station.

But since I didn't, here one of two things happens: either the shuttle takes me to a "central stop" on campus, where I guess I can walk to Sbisa for dinner because I don't have a car, or perhaps in lights of the ones of passengers on this route maybe it will take me where I actually want to go. And then I can get an Uber to a restaurant and back, because, yeah, no car.

Profit??

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Maybe Texas a&m will have more of those pay for ride bicycles that one can use?Pull one from a tree or from on top of sibisa, or Kyle field. This is in humor as I am with you.

Deputy Travis Junior said:

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AggieCo2023 said:

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There's literally perfect functioning trains in several other states lol. Why can't Texas do something Japan and Europe can?

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Look at the population densities. Japan and large swaths of Europe are practically continuous giant cities and their commercial districts are much tighter. Compare that to your Dallas to Houston route. There's nothing in between and once you arrive 2/3 of the train passengers will be looking at a 30+ minute uber to travel to The Woodlands or Katy (the Energy Corridor) or Fort Worth or whatever.

So let's run the math. Google Maps says it's 3h30m from Dallas to Houston. That's the time to beat.
1) 20-30 minutes to the train station
2) need to arrive 60 minutes early to do all the same TSA + boarding stuff that they force you to do at the airport.
3) 1 hour ride (unreasonably optimistic; there will be numerous stops)
4) 30 minutes to disembark, wait on your ride, and drive wherever (probably optimistic)

If it's a 60 minute train ride (again, ridiculously optimistic), you're looking at 3+ hours. If we lengthen the travel time to 1h45m and increase the cab time a little you're looking at 4h. On the financial side, you're looking at 4 cab rides + a train ticket, which is probably $200+. Why would anybody sign up for this? It saves you no time, costs far more, and subjects you to all the travel headaches of airlines.

The business offering offers nothing superior to the current solution while costing a lot more. Oh, and as self driving tech improves, the speed limits between cities will likely increase, decreasing the drive time and making your expensive solution even worse comparatively. (While self driving tech is not ready for city driving, it's ready or darn close to ready for travel between them where traffic and driver behavior is a lot more predictable. In 10 years when they're finishing up your high speed rail system it'll be deployed.)

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Totally wrong on TSA/arrive 60 min early. In Europe I can arrive 10 min before departure and make it easily.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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fka ftc said:

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Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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fka ftc said:

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The WFH / remote working is fading faster than it came on. See massive layoffs in tech and other areas as the bets that WFH was here to stay are all busting.,

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I didn't say or mean people that WFH. This train has a minimum travel time of 90 minutes from station to station. With all the other added time, that would be well over 2 hours from somewhere in DFW metro to somewhere in Houston metro one way. That isn't a reasonable daily commute for most people. This would service people that have to go from one to the other for occasional business reasons, and I think virtual meetings, unlike mass WFH, are here to stay to cut down on travel costs.

---

Slightly off topic, but I take JSX from Love to Hobby 3-4 times a month on day trips. I can leave my house in FloMo and be in my office in Rosharon in just over 2 hours. Leave my house 9:30, board flight 10:05, land about 11:10, rental car 11:15 and sitting pretty in Rosharon about 11:40. Reverse that on way home leaving office at 7:30 and home by 10pm. For about $550-$600 all in.

Point being, folks that need to be physically present have options.

I actually would support rail or similar, but the Texas Central is a poorly thought out solution looking for a non-existent problem.

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What office in tiny Rosharon are you talking about? The town is bigger than it was when I was regularly traveling through that area from SW Houston to Lake Jackson, but even now, the only thing I can think of there is local retail and a grain silo.

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Not sure if this is what they mean, but Schlumberger has a large office that is called Rosharon office

The train to nowhere...

Houston hates Dallas and Dallas hates Houston.

What a horrible waste of money and infringement on good ol' country people's property that lies in between.

This entire deal is nonsense and a massive waste of time and money. There are flights taking off between Dallas and Houston pretty much all day at ~45 minute intervals. Round trip fares on these flights can usually be found for $240 or less. As another poster pointed out, taking this train from Houston to B/CS for anything other than the novelty of it, will be pointless in 90% of cases. You can easily drive to B/CS and back in less time than it would take to mess with everything that will come with getting to and boarding/riding this boondoggle.

zephyr88 said:

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The train to nowhere...

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The owners and employees of the Roans Prairie Checkers restaurant object to your description of their fine establishment as "nowhere".

The stop is also highly convenient to the Roans Prairie Cemetery, whose residents would also be highly offended, if they weren't, well, dead.

Manhattan said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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AlaskanAg99 said:

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Manhattan said:

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Nobody would be losing any land.

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So then why is eminent domain needed?

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If this train puts down so much as one drop of concrete on any ranch or farm land between Houston and Dallas, then the land owners have lost land. That poster is flat out lying.

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Oh no, a viaduct running through farm and ranch land… unlike the neighborhoods we are bulldozing for I45 and other highway in the US.

But seeing your username, you must really love highways.

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So if we're playing games with user names, then I guess you love a bunch of people stacked on top of each other in tiny apartments with rampant crime on the rail systems, with no easy access to private transportation?

Not just flights, but consider the megabus operators that people can take for a lot less than airfare, and while slower, still a better option that this boondoggle.

JamesE4 said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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fka ftc said:

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Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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fka ftc said:

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The WFH / remote working is fading faster than it came on. See massive layoffs in tech and other areas as the bets that WFH was here to stay are all busting.,

---

I didn't say or mean people that WFH. This train has a minimum travel time of 90 minutes from station to station. With all the other added time, that would be well over 2 hours from somewhere in DFW metro to somewhere in Houston metro one way. That isn't a reasonable daily commute for most people. This would service people that have to go from one to the other for occasional business reasons, and I think virtual meetings, unlike mass WFH, are here to stay to cut down on travel costs.

---

Slightly off topic, but I take JSX from Love to Hobby 3-4 times a month on day trips. I can leave my house in FloMo and be in my office in Rosharon in just over 2 hours. Leave my house 9:30, board flight 10:05, land about 11:10, rental car 11:15 and sitting pretty in Rosharon about 11:40. Reverse that on way home leaving office at 7:30 and home by 10pm. For about $550-$600 all in.

Point being, folks that need to be physically present have options.

I actually would support rail or similar, but the Texas Central is a poorly thought out solution looking for a non-existent problem.

---

What office in tiny Rosharon are you talking about? The town is bigger than it was when I was regularly traveling through that area from SW Houston to Lake Jackson, but even now, the only thing I can think of there is local retail and a grain silo.

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Not sure if this is what they mean, but Schlumberger has a large office that is called Rosharon office

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Did not know Schlumberger has an office there now. From the map, it doesn't look like that office would be visible from the path that I would take these days via 762/1462 to 288.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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What office in tiny Rosharon are you talking about? The town is bigger than it was when I was regularly traveling through that area from SW Houston to Lake Jackson, but even now, the only thing I can think of there is local retail and a grain silo.

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What's the saying... "it's not a lot, but its mine"? Its the office of my small business. I live in DFW but my business is in Houston area.

This train not continuing south of houston nor north of dallas is also a non-starter and completely stupid, useless, waste.

Honestly, I was initially in favor of the project, but that was more about the idea rather than the execution.

Texas Central initially claimed they would neither use nor seek to use eminent domain. That was a lie.

Texas Central initially claimed that the project would be entirely private funded. That was a lie.

Texas Central initially claimed that the project would be an economic boom for all countes it passes through. That was a lie.

I could add more, but why would I need to? That's egregious enough.

Add to that their hostility and/or unresponsiveness to landowners and it's clear that Texas Central needs to be stopped.

Hopefully the legislature kills this thing once and for all.

Isn't the Hyperloop just a train with more steps?

Gee, there is no way something like this will fail to meet expectations and cost me tax money.

I'm all in!

I feel like half the guys here make this argument and the other half make the "but we've got south west airlines" argument. And the SWA crowd seems to have figured out how to take Ubers from hobby to their meetings in downtown why can't rail passengers do the same. If the states population is going to double in the next 50 years it seems like having more ways to move people around is a good thing.

dead said:

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Isn't the Hyperloop just a train with more steps?

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https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop

Like always, your lack of intelligence embarrasses you. The Hyperloop is faster and uses less energy than an out of date bullet train.

ProgN said:

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dead said:

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Isn't the Hyperloop just a train with more steps?

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https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop

Like always, your lack of intelligence embarrasses you. The Hyperloop is faster and uses less energy than an out of date bullet train.

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Your link is to a train with more steps…

So it moves people and runs on a track, right? Like I said, a train with extra steps.

How successful is it right now? Looks like they have less than a mile of actual track in place.