High Speed Rail HSR (Houston - DFW Dallas Fort Worth) (FKA Texas Central )

[electricron]

Ron, the segment I was addressing was the proposed route of I-95 through Northeast Wash - an area "not exactly Georgetown".

Get out a map of Wash and locate where the 395 ends @ NY Ave. Then locate where 95 and 495 diverge sort of near the New Carrollton Station. Draw a line between those two points and "more or less" that was the proposed segment the NIMBY lobby successfully "whacked" during the 60's.

1960s being the key time frame. The EPA Act was passed in Congress in 1969, and the EPA was formed in 1970. Afterwards!

You really do not believe President Nixon was a die hard environmentalist who did not wish to see highways built, do you?

While the EPA purpose is to protect the environment, it is not designed to kill projects. It sets up processes to identify, then mitigate problems, so that the project in question gets built. Years are added to the project planning it, but the project will eventually get built incorporating all the mitigation measures.

Take the SMART train as an example. They were rebuilding a railroad line in the swamps of the north San Francisco Bay. Building in or over any waters in the USA is an environmental issue. To mitigate any new environmental damages, SMART mitigated that by removing an abandoned marina in the swamp. SMART was able to finish its project by spending more on something completely different in the swamp. Environmental justice some might call it. Never-the-less, SMART was able to finish the railway.

And that is what all these EIS processes under the EPA ultimately do.

[Pensyfan19]

¨Yare Yare Daze¨ (Jotaro Kujo, Jojo's Bizarre Adventures) [translates to ¨Good Grief¨]

https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2 ... backtracks

DALLAS...
...
The Dallas Morning News reports that Abbott, the Republican in his second term as governor, sent a letter last week to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga saying, “This venture has my full support as Governor of Texas, and I am hopeful that final negotiations of this project with Japan can be concluded so that construction can begin. … Public support and momentum are on our side, and this project can be completed swiftly.”

But after Texans Against High Speed Rail publicized the letter and asked its backers to register their opposition, a spokesman for the governor told the newspaper that Abbott is reconsidering his position, saying he could support the project only if “the private property rights of Texans are fully respected. .. The Governor’s Office will re-evaluate this matter after gathering additional information from all affected parties.”

...

[eolesen]

Surprised that an elected official might change his stance based on how his constituents reacted to something?

I thought that's how things were supposed to work.

[electricron]

We are in election season presently, just wait another month for the elections to be over and watch the winds change again.

[GojiMet86]

https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0006908353

‘Texas Shinkansen’ using JR Tokai’s trains cleared by U.S.



The Yomiuri Shimbun
The U.S. government announced Tuesday it had drawn up safety standards and completed procedures for an environmental impact assessment for a high-speed rail project in Texas that will be supported by Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai).

The document was published in the Federal Register, the official U.S. government gazette, and the rule described will come into effect on Dec. 3.

“It is epoch-making because the safety of the Tokaido Shinkansen line was recognized by a U.S. authority,” a JR Tokai official told The Yomiuri Shimbun.

JR Tokai intends to export its new N700S series trains.

The “Texas Shinkansen” project is for a 385-kilometer-long high-speed rail system connecting Dallas and Houston. U.S. company Texas Central is expected to start construction next year, aiming for the line to start operations in 2026.

Funding for the project, which is expected to cost $20 billion (about ¥2.1 trillion), might face challenges due to the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

[electricron]

Most of the hurdles Texas Central needed to leap over they can check off the list, but there are a few left to jump over. Buying the land for a complete corridor, and raising the money to build the service. Good luck!

[ziggyzack1234]

The hurdle of the Surface Transportation Board is now a very large one, of the fly or die variety. By asking for jurisdiction and getting it but not being exempt from an application, the railroad has put itself on some ice. Sure this insulates them from some local BS that rural politicians have been continuously trying to pull, but the railroad has placed itself solely in the STBs' hands. According to the Texas Tribune as of a few days ago, Texas Central has yet to submit the application. It's hard to say if it's delayed, or this is just how long it takes. I have confidence they will get the thumbs up from them, but I also have to be the devil's advocate here.

For the money, they got about half (~$10 Billion) as of a few weeks ago.
For the land, they have 40% of parcels as of that same Texas Tribune article from a few days ago.
There are also a couple of lesser-known permits that they need to get before construction.

Guess we just sit and wait.

[frequentflyer]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/t ... in-abbott/
More trouble ........

What Was Behind Greg Abbott’s Bullet Train Flip-flop?

Rural Texans have long accepted, sometimes grudgingly, that strips of their land might be acquired to build oil pipelines and highways. But the prospect of a high-speed rail line has sparked a whole different level of outrage.

BY MORGAN O'HANLON
DEC 3, 2020

...Governor Greg Abbott wrote a letter to the Japanese government, a key investor in the project, voicing his support. The potential benefits of the rail seemed manifold. It would offer travelers a ninety-minute alternative to the four-hour drive between Dallas and Houston and relieve highway congestion that’s projected to double by 2035. It would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And it would create thousands of high-paying jobs at a time when Texas is suffering from both a pandemic-related recession and an oil-price bust.

...

Abbott’s letter, however, sparked a firestorm among some of his longtime supporters.

[electricron]

After every new election season and before a new session of the Texas legislature, these new doom and gloom news articles, or should I say editorials, come out. So far, nothing has been passed that would kill this private enterprise’s further development. They already passed legislation last year prohibiting TXDOT from supporting this train financially, why do so again?

What other agency does Texas have that could providing funding to Texas Central? This is much ado about nothing, making a mountain out of an ant hill.

[Jadebenn]

After every new election season and before a new session of the Texas legislature, these new doom and gloom news articles, or should I say editorials, come out. So far, nothing has been passed that would kill this private enterprise’s further development. They already passed legislation last year prohibiting TXDOT from supporting this train financially, why do so again?

What other agency does Texas have that could providing funding to Texas Central? This is much ado about nothing, making a mountain out of an ant hill.

They're playing dirty.

The current law exempts permitting processes required by law. The opponents don't like that. They want to make it legally impossible for the project to move forward, and by doing it this way they can camouflage the issue.

[electricron]

Meanwhile, as the politicians submit bills in the legislature, Texas Central signs another contract to build the train.
https://www.railway-technology.com/news ... let-train/
"04 May 2021 (Last Updated May 4th, 2021 11:29)
Private railroad company Texas Central has signed a $1.6bn contract with Kiewit Infrastructure South (Kiewit) and Mass. Electric Construction (MEC) for the deployment of core electrical systems for a proposed high-speed train project from Dallas to Houston, US."

$1.6 Billion added to the project. Where oh where did they find that money? Not from Uncle Sam or TXDOT.

[electricron]

And another contract was made yesterday, $16 Billion for the final design and construction of rail line.
https://news.yahoo.com/texas-bullet-tra ... 50065.html
About the last thing left to do before the dirt can start flying is financial closure, which they plan to finish this year.
And by the way, no new legislation effecting this train was passed by the Legislature this session.

[eolesen]

Where did they find the money? Apparently they still haven't per Railway Age about an hour ago....

These contracts mean nothing without financing.

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/hi ... d-funding/

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

[electricron]

They hope to raise the money by selling bonds. $16 Billion is a lot of bonds that need to be sold. It would be easier with Federally backed bonds, which is within the power of the US government if it so chose to do. Who know, Biden's administration might even throw in some Federal grants with his Infrastructure package? They probably will not start moving dirt until a financial close, when they have the money in hand to finish the project.
They are on record stating they hope to land some Federally backed bonds, and they would not say no to any grants that may come their way. Whether they can raise the cash is another question remaining unanswered. I believe they think they can, or they would not have started the process. If they can, dirt will fly. If they can not, they will close up shop and wait for another day and another project.

There are a lot of good people and organizations backing this project, and if investors feel confident this management group can do the job, they should be able to raise the money. Investors can be a nit-picky group, just sit back and wait and see what happens is all I can add.

[eolesen]

The planners and consultants do this because they get paid up front, so it's no surprise they're working hard. Got to keep the billable hours high enough to soak up all the seed money.