Texas' $30BN High-Speed Railway

The United States is an economic powerhouse, known  for its vast landscapes and bustling cities. Yet, surprisingly, it lags far behind  when it comes to high-speed rail. While nations like Japan and France boast  sleek, efficient trains zooming at over 200 mph, the U.

S. still relies heavily on cars and  planes for mid and long-distance travel. Will this change anytime soon?

If you take a look at the  California High Speed Rail, the first things you notice are  massive delays and cost increases. But there are other projects too. In Texas,  the idea for a $30billion high-speed line is currently being reviewed.

And there are some  decisive factors that suggest that things could be better here. For example, they want to adapt  the highly successful Japanese Shinkansen system. So what do their plans exactly  look like?

And why might Texas be the ideal home to the first real  high speed railway in the U. S? This is the I45 - connecting Dallas to Houston. 

And if you’re one of the 12 million people living in one of those cities, you probably know all too  well how brutal the journey up the I45 can be. On a good day, the 250 mile car  journey from Houston to Dallas might take you 3 and a half hours. On a bad day, it could easily take five.

The alternative  is to take a public bus or get on a plane. And if you want to go by train? Well  currently there is no real option.

Technically, you would be traveling for 22 hours! It’s hard to believe, but America’s 4th and 5th  largest cities are just poorly connected. Over 100,000 people make the journey at least once a  week but traffic can be really bad, and accidents are so common that it’s actually considered  one of the most dangerous roads in the USA.

And that’s why a new solution is on the table.  One that’s been talked about since 1989 but is only now looking like it might actually get  moving. We are talking about High speed rail.

What really excites me about,  high speed in general is the great untapped opportunity for U. S. transportation.

This is Andy Byford - the senior vice president at Amtrak for high speed rail development programs.  Amtrak is the company that currently does a feasibility review for this whole project. We  got the chance to interview Andy for this video.

I'm a career railway man. As I'd  say railroader. I've been doing this for 35 years.

mainly in mass transit.  Actually, I started at the London Underground, the tube in 1989, and I've worked on three  continents in Australia and Sydney and Canada, where I was the CEO of the Toronto  Transit Commission. I had a stint in New York as the president of New York  City Transit, and most recently I was commissioner for transport for London.

So, it's been a very fascinating career. take me all over the world. but this  new gig at Amtrak is really exciting.

The idea behind this project is not any  high speed rail. What they are looking at, is connecting those two cities using Shinkansen  Japanese technology to link Dallas and Houston, on a 90 minute journey, sub 90 minutes. That is impossible to do, either in a car which takes you about 4 to 5 hours  or by flying.

So, this would be transformative if we can pull this off. Yes you heard that right, they want to use the most efficient high speed rail in  the world: The Japanese Chuo Shinkansen. Imagine jumping on a train in Houston and  getting off in downtown Dallas 90 minutes later.

No traffic jams, no exhaust fumes,  no road accidents. Just a calm, smooth journey at up to 205 miles per hour through  the rolling farmland of the Lone Star State. All in all this project would more than halve  the journey time for commuters and even be faster than flying, once you take into account the time  traveling to the airport and getting on the plane.

So far this makes sense, but there  are certainly more cities that could be connected with a high-speed rail. So  why should it work right here in Texas? Texas is the second largest state,  both by size and by population, and its economy, or GDP, is worth around  $2 trillion.

That’s more than Canada! In fact, if Texas was an independent state,  it would be the world’s 9th biggest economy. Things are going so well in Texas that  in 2023 they had a budget surplus of $32 billion!

And the success doesn’t stop there.  People are flocking to Texas. In the 2010s, the population grew by 18% and since  2020, the state has gained over 750,000 jobs.

That’s more than a third of all  the new jobs in the whole country! There’s space, low taxes and cheaper housing, as well as a variety of expanding  and profitable industries. The state of Texas is growing exponentially,  and it's already a very, very heavily populated state.

And the prediction is it's only going to  get bigger. And most people will be living in the big cities, particularly Dallas and Houston. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is now home to almost 8 million people.

It’s expected to become  America’s third biggest city by the mid-2030s, overtaking Chicago. That’s a lot  of potential rail passengers! All in all, investing in Texas makes  sense.

And as everything grows, infrastructure needs to follow suit. So, what does the project actually look like? The proposed route from Texas Central, the private  company behind this project, will have 3 stations.

The first station will be here, in the Cedars  district of Dallas. It’s just south of Downtown and conveniently close to the Interstate 30 and 35  interchange. It’s also close to the Kay Hutchison Convention Centre, home to international  sporting, business and technology events, and visited by over 1 million people every  year.

Wide open spaces and plenty of light from the huge glass walls will make it a  comfortable and modern transport hub. And also set it apart from the old-fashioned,  though beautiful, Dallas Union Station. Moving south, the second station on the  route will be here in Grimes County.

The new station will be built halfway  between College Station and Huntsville, just off Highway 30. Named “The Brazos Valley  Station'', the 60-acre plot of land that it sits on will include plenty of parking,  as well as a new bus terminal to shuttle passengers directly to the nearby Texas  AM&M university campus in College Station. By building in a relatively undeveloped area,  the opportunity for local development around the station opens up and Texas Central expects the  local economy to flourish as a result.

Taking the train here will get passengers to Dallas  in under an hour and to Houston in a mere 30! The third and final station, on the site  of the former Northwest Mall in Houston, will be built from scratch in a similar design. Located close to the interchange of US 290  and Interstate 610, it will have easy access to local transport, shopping centers and  employment hubs like the Energy Corridor.

This stretch of offices is  home to some of the world’s biggest energy companies and almost  100,000 go to work there everyday. Speaking of energy, it’s crucial to have reliable  energy for a project like this. As we saw in the news, the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl had  a massive impact on the electricity grid.

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Together, these 3 stations form a route that  is very suitable for High Speed Rail. The topography is relatively flat and no sharp turns  are required. On top of that, Andy put it well.

You need to have the right distance.  But the way we always describe it is, too short to fly, too long to drive. So the sweet spot is between 200 and 600 miles and this is pretty much bang. 

In the middle is 240 miles. The stations will offer a fresh alternative. As  well as the state-of-the-art trains themselves: Wide aisles, fast Wi-Fi and a smooth journey that runs every 30 minutes at peak times  and every hour the rest of the time.

According to Texas Central’s original  projections, the line could service 6 million passengers within three years of  opening, and up to 13 million by 2050. Not only that, but with more people taking  the train, fewer cars will make the journey between Houston and Dallas. That means quicker  journeys for everyone, fewer road accidents and a whole lot less pollution as rail travel  generates significantly less emissions.

In their original plan, Texas Central estimated  that the project would support 10,000 direct jobs each year during construction, and 1,500  permanent jobs once the train is operational. And success here could mean success for  other High-Speed railway projects in the US. Sounds great, right?

But how will they do it? They plan on using the same  system as the world’s most successful high-speed train operators - Japan. Let me explain.

In 1964, as they got ready to host the Tokyo  Olympics, Japan opened the world’s first high speed train. Known as the Shinkansen, or “the  bullet train”, Japan’s first high speed railway connected Tokyo and Osaka and initially ran  at 135mph. Nowadays, trains run at 200mph and the network has grown.

A lot. Nine lines now connect twenty-two cities across three islands and the  average delay is only around 1 minute. In its 60 year history, not a single passenger  has died from an accident or malfunction.

And so it's a superbly reliable system and with  an exemplary, unblemished safety record. So, the biggest advantage is you are buying  a proven product. It works.

The Japanese have used it across the various islands  of Japan and exported it to Taiwan. And it's being looked at for India. So I like  buying proven products.

There are other good trains out there, but the Shinkansen is  the one that's been proposed for this route. The Japanese high speed network runs  completely independently from the slower passenger and freight trains  and this would work well for Texas. Traditional railway in America  isn’t really compatible with the high speed Japanese technology,  making cross operation difficult.

So it's actually good that the new  line doesn’t follow any existing track. With that in mind, it’s not difficult  to understand why Texas wants to adopt the Japanese system. And Texas  Central has already set out a plan to work with a Japanese  company, JRC, on the project.

They will use imported technology and  expertise to build the Dallas-Houston line, modeling their trains on a slightly bigger  Japanese version. By using this tried and tested technology, Texas Central can give  some pretty solid guarantees to investors and the public about the trains. But  whilst Japan runs perhaps the most reliable high speed service in the  world, they are not the only ones.

In fact, high speed rail can  now be found across the world. France’s network, for example,  runs for over 1700 miles. The TGV, as it is called, is efficient and popular, and even merges with similar sized networks in  neighbouring countries like Spain and Germany.

China, as you might be able to guess, has gone one  step further. Since deciding to adopt high speed rail back in 2008, they have since built over  25,000 miles of track. That works out at more than double the rest of the world’s high speed  rail, combined!

They initially used Japanese technology as well, but have since developed  their domestic capacity and are close to becoming self-sufficient in the production process -  a path that the USA could feasibly follow. The emphasis here is on "could".  So what is the current situation?

Well, this has been a sort of dream for  years. Has long been talk of a high speed line between Dallas and Houston.  This goes back way before Amtrak got involved.

There's been an organization  looking at this for some ten years now. During that period the route was largely  settled upon, some of the land was acquired and the design of the stations was developed.  They also did market research and ridership projections to estimate whether this  massive investment would be worth it.

In addition, market research was carried out  and ridership projections were made in order to assess whether this extensive  investment would be worthwhile. However, the project faced various challenges.  The situation changed when covid hit.

And the old studies and forecasts had to be redone.  And that’s where Amtrak got involved. So the big question for us at Amtrak was: Would  the business case still stack up post-Covid?

And actually, our market research says the  business case is actually stronger than ever. Maybe it's more leisure travelers, fewer business travelers, but a very,  very strong ridership projection. And where we are at the moment is: We have  applied for, successfully applied for, under Amtrak's leadership, what's called  the corridor identification program with the FRA.

They run a series of different  grants. We are recipients of that grant. There's three stages.

We're about to  enter into the third stage, so not yet a done deal. Lots of big challenges ahead.  But certainly our due diligence is going well.

One of these challenges certainly is  the massive budget. The estimated costs for this project currently amount  to more than 30 billion dollars. So one crucial question is, whether ridership would be high enough  to make this investment worth it.

Texas Central has struggled to gather  that amount and has stated that they will not start construction until  they have secured the entire amount. The state of Texas doesn’t seem to be  interested in investing public money yet. In 2017 the Texas Legislature passed a  law banning the state from spending any public money on “high-speed rail  operated by a private entity”.

This might have also been influenced by  pressure from local activist groups like Texans Against High Speed Rail.  But now that Amtrak is on board, it’s unclear if this law still  prevents an investment. They argue: And quite simply, if we don't  undertake exciting projects like this, the alternative is either gridlock or.

. I would  argue: “do nothing” is not an option. Yes, a high speed rail costs a lot of money.

Well,  so does adding yet more lanes to the I-45. So does adding another runway at,  at, hobby or at Dallas Fort Worth. You know, these things do not come cheap.

”Do  nothing” will just lead to gridlock in Texas. So if we act now, we can avoid that before  the population really does grow exponentially. But on the other hand, some reports  suggest that the potential ridership may be considerably less than  what Texas Central projects.

The activist groups are mostly land owners  along the rural section of the line. They don’t like the idea of a high speed  train speeding through their property or, worse still, having to sell their land completely. In fact, a report from the House  Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure claims that around  300 “residential, commercial, and community facility structures” will be  displaced by the project.

They go on to say that the displacements will disproportionately  affect minority and low-income communities. On top of that, many say that the  location of the new stations and the lack of fully integrated  public transport systems means that passengers will still have to use  cars when going to and from the train. With this opposition, and facing internal  financial difficulties, the future of this project remains open.

Andy from Amtrak  himself is optimistic, but he also says this. So, it's not a done deal yet.  There's a lot more to do, and we can explore that.

But it's  certainly a very exciting project. If Texas manages to pull off what California  has struggled with for decades, a new model for high speed rail development might be born.  And the possibilities are almost endless.

Extensions to the line could bring  Austin and San Antonio into the network, adding another 5 million potential  passengers. A 20 mile extension in Dallas could lead directly to DFW Airport,  the second busiest airport in the world. And not only that, but projects in the  Pacific Northwest, the Midwest and the Southeast could finally get the expertise and  funding that they need to really get moving.

But realistically, we’re not  quite there yet. An opening of the Texas High-Speed Railway can’t  be expected before the early 2030s. In truth, despite the project being well underway  in theory, bringing it into reality is a different matter.

There are a lot of good arguments  for the high speed rail in Texas, but we also can’t rule out that it might suffer a similar  fate as California’s San Francisco to LA line. So what side do you take? Do you think  the arguments for building this massive project make sense?

We would love to  discuss that with you in the comments. If you enjoyed this video we would appreciate  it a lot, if you’d subscribe to MegaBuilds! Thank you for watching this long video until  the end and we’ll see you in the next one.