Texas Central Railway

Texas Central Partners, LLC[1]
Overview
Type High-speed rail
Status Planned
Locale Texas
Termini Houston
Dallas
Stations 2 main stations planned. Downtown Dallas, Downtown Houston, Smaller station planned in Brazos Valley near Bryan/College Station
Services 1 initially
Operation
Opened TBA, sometime after 2020[2]
Rolling stock N700 Series Shinkansen
Technical
Track gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Operating speed 205 miles per hour (330 km/h)
Route map

 Dallas
Brazos Valley
Houston

Texas Central or Texas Central Partners, LLC is a private company that is proposing a high-speed rail line between Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston. It plans to use proven technology based on that used by the Central Japan Railway Company.[3] The company plans to use trains that are based on the N700 Series Shinkansen, and has indicated that the journey time would be less than 90 minutes.[4][5] The company has indicated that service on the line could start as early as 2020,[2] and it would therefore become the second high-speed rail line in North America after the Northeast Corridor's Acela Express, and the first full high-speed route.

Company details

The company is working with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and TxDOT to develop the Environmental Impact Statement required by NEPA.[6]

The CEO is Mr Tim Keith, and he is responsible for the company's finance, development, construction and eventual operations.[7]

In July 2015 the company announced that they had secured $75 million of private funding to allow the project to move forward from feasibility studies to development planning.[8]

In December 2015 the company announced that it had appointed three new executives to help develop the project, all of whom will report to the CEO Tim Keith. Three appointments are as follows:[9]

  • Managing Director, External Affairs – Holly Reed. She was previously Regional vice president of external affairs for AT&T.
  • Chief Finance Officer (CFO) – Lori Willox. She is a certified public accountant, and was previously a Senior vice president and CFO for Balfour Beatty’s Central region.[10]
  • Managing Director, Design-Build Program – Doug Jones. He has been in the construction industry for 38 years and was previously with Balfour Beatty Construction in Dallas.

Route

On August 10, 2015 the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Railroad Administration issued a report that supported the so-called utility corridor for the line.[11]

Entering the Houston area, the train line would run parallel to U.S. 290, Hempstead Highway and a freight rail line, before entering near downtown Houston.

In addition to stations at each end of the line, a station is also planned for unincorporated Grimes County, Texas, in order to serve nearby Texas A&M University (the state's largest). However, Grimes County has opposed the project.

In January 2018, plans for the station in Dallas were released. It will be located on the west side of The Cedars with pedestrian walkways connecting to Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, the preferred location identified by the Federal Railroad Administration in their Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

History

In January 2017, President Trump's administration listed the project as a national infrastructure priority.[12]

In June 2017, it was stated that construction would begin in 2018 and would support 10,000 jobs during each year of the construction process and 1,000 jobs in each year after that.[13] Also in June 2017, the company announced that it had reached agreement with Fluor Corporation to advance the preliminary development of the project. Fluor will support the project during the preliminary development by refining the project’s engineering, design-build cost estimate, schedule and construction planning, and potentially further phases of development. Fluor and its partners would be the preferred design-builder of the project.[14]On Sep 13 2018, the company earned a $300 million loan for permitting, design and engineering.[15] The company selected Salini Impregilo to lead the civil construction consortium that will build the Texas passenger line.[16]

Potential expansion

It has been speculated that there would be a second phase of the project to link Austin and San Antonio, but the company has only stated that the initial project will " ... create a backbone for future expansion into other cities."[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Texas Central. "Texas Central Partners, LLC".
  2. 1 2 Radley, Whitney (August 16, 2012). "Full speed ahead for 205 MPH bullet train between Houston and Dallas? 2020 set as target date". www.houston-culturemap.com. CultureMap LLC.
  3. ↑ Batheja, Aman; Smith, Stephen J. (August 18, 2014). "The Bullet Train That Could Change Everything". The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune.
  4. 1 2 Texas Central. "Learn the Facts". Texas Central Railway.
  5. ↑ Begley, Dug (May 10, 2016). "Houston really wants the proposed bullet train to make a stop downtown". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  6. ↑ TexDOT. "Dallas-Houston High-Speed Rail Project". Texas Department of Transport.
  7. ↑ RT&S (July 23, 2015). "Texas high-speed rail project names new CEO; gets $75 million boost". Railway Track & Structures Magazine (RT&S). New York, USA: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Inc.
  8. ↑ Baddour, Dylan (July 23, 2015). "Texas high speed rail passes major milestone with first fundraising announcement". Houston Chronicle. Hearst Newspapers, LLC.
  9. ↑ Murray, Lance (December 3, 2015). "Texas Central Partners names new execs at high-speed rail developer". Houston Business Journal (www.bizjournals.com/houston). American City Business Journals.
  10. ↑ Bloomberg. "Executive Profile - Lori Willox". Bloomberg.
  11. ↑ Green, Stephen (August 28, 2015). "Utility corridor gets nod for high-speed rail". The Courier of Montgomery County. Your Houston News.
  12. ↑ Global Construction Review (January 30, 2017). "Trump makes $137bn list of "emergency" infrastructure schemes, all needing private finance". Global Construction Review.
  13. ↑ Quirke, Joe (June 16, 2017). "Texas to begin work on Dallas–Houston bullet train next year". Global Construction Review.
  14. ↑ Chirls, Chris (August 14, 2017). "Texas Central, Fluor reach HSR agreement". Railway Age.
  15. ↑ "Texas Central lands $300 million loan for Dallas-to-Houston bullet train project". 13 September 2018.
  16. ↑ "Texas central selects Renfe as operating partner". www.rtands.com.
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