Yes Virginia there may be a Sunset Limited running east of New Orleans

[VentureForth]

Well, in this case, I think that the Texas Stick Man (which is what I'm gonna call it: >--< Dallas & Fort Worth to San Antonio and Houston through Waco, Temple and Austin) should be a Texas thing. Shouldn't be an Amtrak thing - and I think that for all the intrastate systems. Certainly want to keep Amtrak connecting the National system...

 

[printman2000]

Longview is just about as close to Houston as Austin is...
A lot of Houston's problems are Houston's alone. They've chosen not to support rail and they've chosen to put in a half-butt light rail disaster and they've chosen to spend their money on three huge loops around the city.

They're sleeping in the bed they made.

You have to consider Texas history before rushing to judgment. Houston is a big oil city, so naturally it will have pushed cars for the past many decades. Texans are also very independent minded which again leads to more car use. These two things have long been hurdles to rail in our state.

However, both Houston and Dallas are coming around. Dallas already has lots of light rail and commuter between Fort Worth & Dallas. Houston is expanding light rail and have been talking commuter rail more and more. There is also plans for a new intermodal station. From my experience, people are tired of dealing with the traffic and are more and more willing to use public transportation. I believe more would step on a train than on a bus, though.

Yeah, Houston's current light rail is small, but it was a first step. And it has been successful enough to get them moving on building more.

Things are looking up (rail-wise) for my home town!

 

[saxman]

Longview is just about as close to Houston as Austin is...
A lot of Houston's problems are Houston's alone. They've chosen not to support rail and they've chosen to put in a half-butt light rail disaster and they've chosen to spend their money on three huge loops around the city.

They're sleeping in the bed they made.

Your are right. Some of the larger states such as Texas, Florida, and New York need to step up to the plate and fund some Amtrak passenger services like California, Illinois, North Carolina and other states have done instead of building more highways.

I think Texas is a lot closer to getting on board with rail then some think. The state Legislature is very close to forming a passenger rail division of TxDOT. IIRC, its just passed the state Senate and has gone to the House. It will be very exciting news for Texas. Now that Perry's precious Trans-Texas Corridor is pretty much dead, I can see Texas being the next California as far as rail service. I'm willing to bet we'll see extension of the Heartland Flyer to SAS, providing two daily trains on the FTW-SAS route.

 

[jis]

I think Texas is a lot closer to getting on board with rail then some think. The state Legislature is very close to forming a passenger rail division of TxDOT. IIRC, its just passed the state Senate and has gone to the House. It will be very exciting news for Texas. Now that Perry's precious Trans-Texas Corridor is pretty much dead, I can see Texas being the next California as far as rail service. I'm willing to bet we'll see extension of the Heartland Flyer to SAS, providing two daily trains on the FTW-SAS route.

Will all this happen before or after Perry manages to personally secede from the Union? :lol:

As for the Heratland Flyer being extended to SAS, well unless the timings of the trains change drastically that will be an odd thing to do, because the Texas Eagle/Golden State/whatever it is called and the Heartland Flyer will be chasing one another's marker from Fort Worth to SAS and back, given current timings.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The Texas Eagle lost its Houston section back in the '97 Clinton cuts that would have killed the entire train. The funding raised for it in the eleventh hour supported the SAS section but not, alas, the Houston section.

 

[George Harris]

The UP (ex T&P) direct line between Ft. Worth and El Paso is 621 mile, mostly with a 70 mph speed limit for frieghts. There are al lot of slower limits, particularly in the first 200 miles out of Ft. Worth, but it would appear that a 12 hour schedule, which would be a 50 mph average, would be possible. This compares to 20 hours via San Antonio, even if the the dwell time at SA is zero.

Saying this to say that it would make sense to have a cross-platform swap between the TE / Golden State at Ft. Worth and let the new train run the direct line. In the current set up, there is 28 hours between leaving Ft. Worth and leaving El Paso. Thus a proper revision could easily take 12 hours out of the end to end time.

 

[henryj]

Longview is just about as close to Houston as Austin is...
A lot of Houston's problems are Houston's alone. They've chosen not to support rail and they've chosen to put in a half-butt light rail disaster and they've chosen to spend their money on three huge loops around the city.

They're sleeping in the bed they made.

Your are right. Some of the larger states such as Texas, Florida, and New York need to step up to the plate and fund some Amtrak passenger services like California, Illinois, North Carolina and other states have done instead of building more highways.

I think Texas is a lot closer to getting on board with rail then some think. The state Legislature is very close to forming a passenger rail division of TxDOT. IIRC, its just passed the state Senate and has gone to the House. It will be very exciting news for Texas. Now that Perry's precious Trans-Texas Corridor is pretty much dead, I can see Texas being the next California as far as rail service. I'm willing to bet we'll see extension of the Heartland Flyer to SAS, providing two daily trains on the FTW-SAS route.

The Heartland Flyer is on the old Texas Chief/Lone Star route which at one time extended from Houston, Temple, Fort Worth, KC and Chicago. But as far as entending it down to SAS running on basically the same schedule as the Eagle, I just don't see it. Instead of your proposal I would institute another corridor train running opposite the Eagle's schedule thereby providing a morning and afternoon departure in both directions between DFW and SAS.

You could also extend the Heartland Flyer straight north from KC on the old Twin Star Rocket route and terminate it in Minneapolis/St Paul. Then start up a new LD train that serves Colorado and makes connections in DFW.

What Texas needs is corridor trains in the whole 'triangle', SAS, HOU, DFW to SAS and perhaps a HOU to Corpus/Brownsville service. It looks like we are going to get corridor type service between SAS/HOU and New Orleans.

 

[henryj]

The UP (ex T&P) direct line between Ft. Worth and El Paso is 621 mile, mostly with a 70 mph speed limit for frieghts. There are al lot of slower limits, particularly in the first 200 miles out of Ft. Worth, but it would appear that a 12 hour schedule, which would be a 50 mph average, would be possible. This compares to 20 hours via San Antonio, even if the the dwell time at SA is zero.
Saying this to say that it would make sense to have a cross-platform swap between the TE / Golden State at Ft. Worth and let the new train run the direct line. In the current set up, there is 28 hours between leaving Ft. Worth and leaving El Paso. Thus a proper revision could easily take 12 hours out of the end to end time.

George, I worked on this type of schedule from time to time and basically it flip flops the current Sunset schedule. If you did this then you could extend the Heartland Flyer service down to SAS and just run the Eagle/Golden State all the way from Chicago through DFW and out the Baird sub. But then you serve El Paso around midnight in both directions and you would have to run a stub Sunset Limited all the way from New Orleans through Houston to El Paso. It would flip the current Sunset schedule making it an overnight run between NOL and HOU, but that part of the route is agonizingly slow anyway. It would give daylight service between Tucson/Phoenix and LAX but would not connect with the CS anymore. It's an interesting thought anyway.

 

[saxman]

I think Texas is a lot closer to getting on board with rail then some think. The state Legislature is very close to forming a passenger rail division of TxDOT. IIRC, its just passed the state Senate and has gone to the House. It will be very exciting news for Texas. Now that Perry's precious Trans-Texas Corridor is pretty much dead, I can see Texas being the next California as far as rail service. I'm willing to bet we'll see extension of the Heartland Flyer to SAS, providing two daily trains on the FTW-SAS route.

Will all this happen before or after Perry manages to personally secede from the Union? :lol:

As for the Heratland Flyer being extended to SAS, well unless the timings of the trains change drastically that will be an odd thing to do, because the Texas Eagle/Golden State/whatever it is called and the Heartland Flyer will be chasing one another's marker from Fort Worth to SAS and back, given current timings.

Hahaha! Yeah I forgot Texas was going to secede from the Union.

As far as scheduling goes, the Texas Eagle use to depart FTW as late 4 PM or even 4:30 PM. In my grand scheme, I think the TE should be running a lot later anyways to make an Empire Builder connection in Chicago. Now that its usually running on time, some serious padding can be taken out, by running on the TRE line (which I think will happen sooner than later) and still arrive in SAS before midnight. Maybe make the Heartland Flyer depart OKC a little earlier, get to Fort Worth before noon and have a late afternoon SAS arriving. And as I'm typing this, I realize that even that may be a little close together, but keep in mind I'm thinking in very short terms. If money arrived tomorrow, you could start this service this fall with no extra equipment. I'm just thinking what could happen within a year, so don't attack me please.

Of course this corridor needs 4 or 5 or more trains daily, but sounds like Texas is gearing up for more serious HSR program.

So now that we're talking about Texas in the service East of NOL thread I should make a comment about that....Yes! we need service east of NOL!

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Of course not. My plan is if Texas can pull off their intrastate HSR project, a standard guage, electrified, newest technology steel wheel passenger only ROW that is rated to 180 MPH or higher (ie: Shinkansen, TGV) could, indeed, get to there from here. My preliminary estimations would guess that on 180 MPH line, averaging 150 MPH, you could go from Houston to Austin to Dallas in 2:36. That's about an hour and a half longer than SWA, but when you figure the waiting room, etc., you're probably 1/2 hour delta. San Antonio to Dallas could be done in 1:50. It's bold, but doable in my opinion.
All Amtrak has to do is connect El Paso to the rest of the mess and tie Texas to the Nation.

Okay, if that route can really be done in 2:36 (Houston-Dallas) and does not require a train change in Austin, then that amount of time is competitive.

I still believe, though, you would get a lot more use with a straight shot (and less time). And I would bet it would be the most used corridor of any in Texas.

I think the thought experiment that should be done is:

1) Figure out what it would cost to build the Texas Triangle at some particular speed (say, 220 MPH), and what the times between various city pairs would be.

2) Figure out what speeds would be required for the Texas T-Bone configuration to achieve equally good times for all the major city pairs, and what that would cost to build.

My suspicion is that building a smaller number of miles of 300 MPH track is going to turn out to be cheaper than building a larger number of miles of 220 MPH track.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Any HS corridor in TX that includes El Paso would be greatly opposed due to the huge amount of infrastructure to service one major city. With just about nothing between San Antonio and El Paso, it's a different ball game than the highly congested I-35 and I-10 corridors.
Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, Odessa and Abilene are the only other large cities West of the Ft. Worth/San Antonio line, but they are not in any sort of decent alignment.

El Paso is probably within range of having 1.5 hour HSR service to ABQ (IIRC it's about 266 miles), which puts that in range of being commuter service.

I think ABQ should have HSR to Ft Worth, and where that track crosses the Lubbock to Amarillo rail route, there should be a junction to provide Lubbock and Amarillo with rail service to all these other places. Maybe the trains serving Lubbock could continue south to Midland and Odessa. Not sure how to best deal with Abilene, though maybe the answer is to find the part of the Ft Worth to ABQ track closest to Abilene, and run track from there to Abilene.

 

[jis]

As for the Heratland Flyer being extended to SAS, well unless the timings of the trains change drastically that will be an As far as scheduling goes, the Texas Eagle use to depart FTW as late 4 PM or even 4:30 PM. In my grand scheme, I think the TE should be running a lot later anyways to make an Empire Builder connection in Chicago. Now that its usually running on time, some serious padding can be taken out, by running on the TRE line (which I think will happen sooner than later) and still arrive in SAS before midnight. Maybe make the Heartland Flyer depart OKC a little earlier, get to Fort Worth before noon and have a late afternoon SAS arriving. And as I'm typing this, I realize that even that may be a little close together, but keep in mind I'm thinking in very short terms. If money arrived tomorrow, you could start this service this fall with no extra equipment. I'm just thinking what could happen within a year, so don't attack me please.

Yeah. As I said there are suitable possible schedule changes that could make this work. It is just that anything close to current schedules won;t work too well.

 

[henryj]

Hahaha! Yeah I forgot Texas was going to secede from the Union.

The right of secession is not spelled out in the US Constitution nor is it denied to any state. One myth that continues to go around is that Texas was given the exclusive right to secede from the Union should it so desire. Texas was an independent Republic from 1836 until it joined the Union in 1845. One right Texas did reserve was title to all it's public lands. Any land in Texas that is now owned by the Federal Government has been purchased over time. So the right to secede exists for any state in the union, but as history has shown, that is only valid if the state has the means to make it stick. Otherwise the power of the Federal Government is absolute and has show it will not allow states to voluntarily leave the Union.

http://www.texassecede.com/faq.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas

 

[printman2000]

Texas was also given the right to divide into 5 separate states if it chooses to do so. Probably could not happen today.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texas.asp

Just think, Texas states would then have 10 senators.

 

[GG-1]

Texas was also given the right to divide into 5 separate states if it chooses to do so. Probably could not happen today.
Just think, Texas states would then have 10 senators.

Scarier thought, More! Politicians

Aloha

 

[Ispolkom]

Hahaha! Yeah I forgot Texas was going to secede from the Union.

The right of secession is not spelled out in the US Constitution nor is it denied to any state. One myth that continues to go around is that Texas was given the exclusive right to secede from the Union should it so desire. Texas was an independent Republic from 1836 until it joined the Union in 1845. One right Texas did reserve was title to all it's public lands. Any land in Texas that is now owned by the Federal Government has been purchased over time. So the right to secede exists for any state in the union, but as history has shown, that is only valid if the state has the means to make it stick. Otherwise the power of the Federal Government is absolute and has show it will not allow states to voluntarily leave the Union.

http://www.texassecede.com/faq.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas

The Texas secession web site is quite something. [Comments redacted as being unconnected to Amtrak]

Obligitory railroad content: When the Southern Pacific and other railroads were built in Texas, did they get state land grants, since there wasn't federal land available?

 

[George Harris]

Obligitory railroad content: When the Southern Pacific and other railroads were built in Texas, did they get state land grants, since there wasn't federal land available?

Don't know, but until recently it was required that a railroad that operated in Texas had to be headqurtered in Texas. That is why you had such companies as the

St. Louis, San Francisco and Texas

The Missouri - Kansas - Texas Railroad Company of Texas

The Chicago Rock Island and Gulf

The Panhandle and Santa Fe

The Gulf Colorado and Santa Fe

Texas and New Orleans

Fort Worth and Denver City Railway Company

Even though Texas and Pacific had connections with Missouri Pacific, it functioned completely separately. For several of these others, the difference was difficult to notice. FW&DC was somewhere in between the completely separate identity and operation of T&P and the invisibility of the likes of SLSFT. MKT resolved their double corporated identity and its costs by eventually closing their St. Louis headquarters and moving everything to Texas.

 

[henryj]

Hahaha! Yeah I forgot Texas was going to secede from the Union.

The right of secession is not spelled out in the US Constitution nor is it denied to any state. One myth that continues to go around is that Texas was given the exclusive right to secede from the Union should it so desire. Texas was an independent Republic from 1836 until it joined the Union in 1845. One right Texas did reserve was title to all it's public lands. Any land in Texas that is now owned by the Federal Government has been purchased over time. So the right to secede exists for any state in the union, but as history has shown, that is only valid if the state has the means to make it stick. Otherwise the power of the Federal Government is absolute and has show it will not allow states to voluntarily leave the Union.

http://www.texassecede.com/faq.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas

The Texas secession web site is quite something. [Comments redacted as being unconnected to Amtrak]

Obligitory railroad content: When the Southern Pacific and other railroads were built in Texas, did they get state land grants, since there wasn't federal land available?

yes they did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_and_Pacific_Railway

http://books.google.com/books?id=56UVAAAAY...lt&resnum=9