Replying to Amtrak and TxDOT to study new service from SHV to DFW

Bossier's right on the border between Texas and Louisiana (I drove through there one evening last year), before you get to SHV.

No, Bossier City is Shreveports twin city on the east bank of the Red river. It looks like they want to take the train over the river and have the terminal station there as well as one in Shreveport itself.

Bossier City is also home to several of the Shreveport area casinos. Also, Bossier City is the locale of the immense Barksdale AFB, with its scads (thousands? not sure) of young adults. Even those who live off-base seemed to live on the Bossier City side of the river(at least when I lived in the Shreveport area in the 90's). Many of them seemed to get the weekend off and I'm sure would relish an easy, comfortable way to get to Dallas (i.e. anywhere other than Shreveport) for the weekend.

About College Station, yes, I would also love to see that being included in the scheme of things if and when Texas gets serious about inter-city corridor rail, but the location of that town is such that I have yet not been able to figure out what would be the best way to connect it- on Dallas-San Antonio leg, San Antonio-Houston leg or Houston-Dallas leg.. one of the sections will need to take a significant detour from the shortest path, the question is, which one would make most sense, or rather, least negative impact on the popularity of the train among city to city travelers.

Running a Dallas-Houston route through College station is one of the options in the $15 million TX DOT preliminary engineering and NEPA documentation project. The application and supporting documents for the project can be found here. Applied for $18 million, got $15 million. The project will look at 3 alternative routes: UPRR, BNSF, and a green field route following I-45. More links to the Texas DOT HSIPR applications are here.

Interesting document, looks like TEXDOT has at least found someone that knows where the existing rail routes are. Looking at their map they seem to be choosing the old MP route between Bryan and Hearne which is a roundabout way to go vs the old SP route which is directly up highway 6. The MP route encompasses a sharp left turn right in the middle of downtown Bryan followed by a stretch down the middle of a residential street before crossing over Hwy 21 to go north. They follow this to the Brazos river and almost to Valley Jct and then switch over to the DALSA to get into Hearne. That alignment will add time and miles to the route that is already the longest route. If they were really serious about starting up this service, by far the quickest and cheapest way is to use the BNSF route. This study won't be completed until 2014. The biggest boondoggle is the proposed route up I45 which would require billions and billions of dollars to build a whole new ROW and probably rebuild much of I45 plus all new park and ride style stations since I45 bypasses every population center between Houston and Dallas. But, hey, the politicians might like that because they can award more contracts and get more kick backs. I look at this study as a way to avoid doing anything for years other than waste taxpayers dollars.

-It is a well informed assumption around here that $$$$ studies is political kickback to consulting firms.

A study is also a way for politicians to claim they are doing something about an issue without actually doing anything, or it can be a sop thrown to the losing side: hey, we're not going to fund your project, but we'll do a study that can later be ignored.

And for $15 million, I can't believe that some corridor service could have been started up without needing any study whatsoever. A second DAL to SAT service. Service to SHV/BOS. Sending a second or third train to OKC. etc. etc.

-It is a well informed assumption around here that $$$$ studies is political kickback to consulting firms.

A study is also a way for politicians to claim they are doing something about an issue without actually doing anything, or it can be a sop thrown to the losing side: hey, we're not going to fund your project, but we'll do a study that can later be ignored.

About College Station, yes, I would also love to see that being included in the scheme of things if and when Texas gets serious about inter-city corridor rail, but the location of that town is such that I have yet not been able to figure out what would be the best way to connect it- on Dallas-San Antonio leg, San Antonio-Houston leg or Houston-Dallas leg.. one of the sections will need to take a significant detour from the shortest path, the question is, which one would make most sense, or rather, least negative impact on the popularity of the train among city to city travelers.

Running a Dallas-Houston route through College station is one of the options in the $15 million TX DOT preliminary engineering and NEPA documentation project. The application and supporting documents for the project can be found here. Applied for $18 million, got $15 million. The project will look at 3 alternative routes: UPRR, BNSF, and a green field route following I-45. More links to the Texas DOT HSIPR applications are here.

The BNSF Dallas to Houston needs quite a bit of work, but at least the alignment is fairly straight. A rail relay, a good T&S (that's tie and surfacing) job, probably to the tune of about 1/3 new ties, and likely some signal work and of course grade crossing protection would be needed, but then, excluding the signal work that has been funded with virtually no publicity for almost the entirety of the Vermonter's one train a day route north of Springfield, Mass. Likewise, there has been similar work done on Uncle's dime for such things as Gulfport to Hattiesburg MS under the guise of improved port access. It would be most useful if a deal could be made to use the UP (ex-SP) route between Dallas and Corsicana.

Do the above and with a 90 mph limit, a reliable schedule of just under 4 hours could be achieved. (The BNSF line had a 90 mph speed limit in the past before the ICC outlawed 80 plus for the signal system they had.) It would be better to go for 110 mph, speed up some of the slow spots, and try for a schedule closer to 3 hours.

Certainly makes sense. I think LA-SAN is a good model for speed, etc. I think some people out in the "real world" also get too tied up worrying too much about the full length route rider of trains (FLRRT). It's the folks going back and forth along the the intermediate stops, that truly benefit. As the air service in this country contracts, many of these smaller towns and cities are simply going to lose their scheduled carriers at their respective airports...it's not a matter of if but when. Handwriting is on the wall.

The trick is frequency and reliability..and an alternative when things go south. Put those 3 together and it would work.

The BNSF Dallas to Houston needs quite a bit of work, but at least the alignment is fairly straight. A rail relay, a good T&S (that's tie and surfacing) job, probably to the tune of about 1/3 new ties, and likely some signal work and of course grade crossing protection would be needed, but then, excluding the signal work that has been funded with virtually no publicity for almost the entirety of the Vermonter's one train a day route north of Springfield, Mass. Likewise, there has been similar work done on Uncle's dime for such things as Gulfport to Hattiesburg MS under the guise of improved port access. It would be most useful if a deal could be made to use the UP (ex-SP) route between Dallas and Corsicana.

Do the above and with a 90 mph limit, a reliable schedule of just under 4 hours could be achieved. (The BNSF line had a 90 mph speed limit in the past before the ICC outlawed 80 plus for the signal system they had.) It would be better to go for 110 mph, speed up some of the slow spots, and try for a schedule closer to 3 hours.

Thing is George, all that could be easily done for less money than trying to restore Houston Austin or some of the other boondoggles TEXDOT has come up with lately and you would have a viable corridor between Texas two largest population areas. The Aggies get a bus connection from college station. You could also connect Huntsville and Sam Houston State with the same bus route. The other two sides of the triangle(DFW/SAS/HOU) already have service, all you have to do is add to it.

The BNSF Dallas to Houston needs quite a bit of work, but at least the alignment is fairly straight. A rail relay, a good T&S (that's tie and surfacing) job, probably to the tune of about 1/3 new ties, and likely some signal work and of course grade crossing protection would be needed, but then, excluding the signal work that has been funded with virtually no publicity for almost the entirety of the Vermonter's one train a day route north of Springfield, Mass. Likewise, there has been similar work done on Uncle's dime for such things as Gulfport to Hattiesburg MS under the guise of improved port access. It would be most useful if a deal could be made to use the UP (ex-SP) route between Dallas and Corsicana.

Do the above and with a 90 mph limit, a reliable schedule of just under 4 hours could be achieved. (The BNSF line had a 90 mph speed limit in the past before the ICC outlawed 80 plus for the signal system they had.) It would be better to go for 110 mph, speed up some of the slow spots, and try for a schedule closer to 3 hours.

Look at the CCC Cleveland-Columbus-Cincy that has been studied for 30-40 years-It is a well informed assumption around here that $$$$ studies is political kickback to consulting firms. Our subway took 70 years to get built which is now in the form of Bus BRT only lanes for 4.5 miles.

I think if you are trying to have a corridor rather than express service Dallas-Houston though, you should have it serve Bryan-College Station since it is a pretty significant intermediate point, especially once you consider all of the student population there.

I would agree with you Johnny as that route has the most traffic potential. But for start up it would be much more expensive than the BNSF route because of the freight traffic and UP would require a lot of improvements to upgrade the line to accommodate 4 1/2 hour service. Either route requires substantial grade crossing improvements in the urban areas and Houston needs a real passenger station. Recently there has been some suggestions to utilize the downtown post office as the new intermodal center which would be great as it sits where the old SP station used to be. Dallas of course still has their Union Station and uses it for light rail and TRE. However, even there they only have the outside platform available for intercity service. To get the 'Texas Triangle' service going is going to require substantial investment in infrastructure. San Antonio desparately needs a central station and some track rework to speed up entry and exit times in both directions.