TxDOT to Study Central Texas Rail Line (Oklahoma City - South TX

[kaitoku]

Yet another study, which seems to be an area of expertise rather than actually building a line:

TxDOT to examine high-speed rail’s feasibility from Oklahoma City to South Texas
BY JESSICA PRIEST | TELEGRAM STAFF
Friday, Jun 22, 2012 4:30 AM
The Texas Department of Transportation is embarking on a two-year study to gauge high speed rail’s feasibility.

Prompted by a $5.6 million federal grant, the agency will put areas from Oklahoma City to South Texas underneath a microscope where electrified trains should go and how fast they should get there in order to lessen roadway congestion.

http://www.tdtnews.com/index/news/show/ ... outh+Texas

Of course we have two other efforts:

http://www.thsrtc.com/info/

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/prin ... l?page=all
The above Texas Central Railway doesn't seem to have a website yet, but its parent company does:
http://www.usjhsr.com/USJHSR/Welcome.html

[Jeff Smith]

More news: http://www.gonzalescannon.com/node/11437

The study will examine best possible options for the development of passenger trains that will connect metropolitan areas such as Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio, and compare different types of services such as existing Amtrak routes to a new high-speed rail system. The study will also explore funding options such as the potential for public-private partnerships.

...

The $14 million study is partially funded through a $5.6 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration’s High Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail program. TxDOT is providing a 20 percent match.

...

If built, the Oklahoma City to South Texas line could provide the foundation for a high-speed or higher performance rail system that would eventually connect all the major metropolitan areas in Texas.

[Jeff Smith]

More articles with more clarity: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_ ... 954588.php

Adding high-speed rail would mean building new tracks because of federal rules regulating trains moving at those speeds. The study also will look at extending passenger rail to the Rio Grande Valley, Laredo or Corpus Christi, Moczygemba said.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_ ... z2CKYaPADf

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/txdo ... ido/nSfRD/

The area being studied, down the state’s most populous north-south spine, is roughly the same area envisioned last decade for the initial piece of Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor, which was to have included rail lines along with toll roads and utilities. After a backlash from rural property owners, that plan died a slow death between 2007, when the Legislature first condemned it, and 2011, when lawmakers eliminated mention of it in state statutes.

Texas first flirted with high-speed rail more than two decades ago. The Legislature in 1989 formed the Texas High Speed Rail Authority, which in turn awarded a 50-year franchise in 1991 to a consortium to build what was to be a triangle of rail between Houston, San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth. But that effort foundered, and the franchise agreement was canceled in 1994.

The TxDOT staff, operating with authority granted by the Texas Transportation Commission in 2010, will pay Colorado-based engineering consultant CH2M Hill $7 million to coordinate the current study and do other tasks, and has a $1.8 million contract with HNTB to estimate potential ridership. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation, working in concert with TxDOT and its consultants, will handle the study from the Red River to Oklahoma City.

The study area overlaps the 115-mile corridor from Georgetown to San Antonio where the Lone Star Rail District hopes to build a commuter rail line on what is now a Union Pacific freight line. Joe Black, the district’s rail director, said the two projects could easily coexist. The $1.4 million in TxDOT money, in fact, comes from $8.7 million that the Transportation Commission had set aside to study Georgetown-to-San Antonio passenger rail.

[Rockingham Racer]

The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing down here. UP is rerouting trains to Mexico over a brand new bridge 10 miles from the current one in Brownsville so as to stop blocking crossings in the city. The Brownsville and county planners want to rip up the tracks to the current bridge and replace with a highway, thus severing rail service to the downtown area. Meanwhile, the State Rail Plan calls for passenger train service to Brownsville. See what I mean?