# DFW High-Speed Dispute: Airport vs. Downtown



## RobertB

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that a rift has developed between some of the backers of high-speed rail in Texas. It's a classic dispute, with a twist. I would think that many cities have had a debate about whether to run HSR into the downtown core vs. out to the airport... but Dallas and Fort Worth have downtowns that are separated by 30 miles, with the airport in between. And on top of that, the two cities very seldom come together on regional planning issues, with DFW airport itself being the notable exception (and one that was somewhat forced on the cities by the feds in the early '70s).

Here's some tidbits:



> Tarrant County _[Fort Worth side]_ Commissioner Gary Fickes is among those who favors 200-mph trains on elevated tracks -- possibly on right of way along Texas 360 in Arlington -- to one station at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. From there, a passenger could hop on a train and be in Houston in about 80 minutes, stopping only a few times to pick up passengers along the 250-mile journey.
> Such a system would cost much more than other proposals but could be privately funded, and would be better for the state long term, Fickes argues. A Japanese company has already moved to Texas to put together a bullet-train proposal.


My thoughts on the matter: While I would love to see a high-speed rail terminal in downtown, it would require massive displacement of existing homes and businesses, and would be difficult to route around those damned freeways that choke off both downtown cores like a noose. Also, there's no long-term parking in either downtown core, and I think Texas high-speed rail will be much better off if it doesn't have to rely solely upon those city dwellers who have decided to go car-free. Each one of those issues is fully addressed by routing HSR to DFW Airport.

Also from the article:



> On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that $15 million had been awarded to Texas for design of a high-speed rail line connecting Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston.
> It was part of a $2 billion program that included the redistribution of money initially awarded to Florida for development of a high-speed-rail line from Tampa to Orlando.


Please let me say a big Texas "Thank y'all" to Florida, for turning your backs on that awful Federal money. It's tainted, of course, but we'll make the great sacrifice of spending it for you. Y'all keep up the good work.


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## Devil's Advocate

I've been living in Texas since the mid 1980's and I say with some confidence that there will never be a major HSR network in this state in my lifetime. Passenger rail is (rightly) viewed as a threat to our local airlines, bus lines & charter companies, rental car companies, and tollway operators. I've watched their lobbying groups kill similar projects in the past and I have no doubt they could kill any future attempt just as easily as the last one.


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## MrFSS

RobertB said:


> The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that a rift has developed between some of the backers of high-speed rail in Texas. It's a classic dispute, with a twist. I would think that many cities have had a debate about whether to run HSR into the downtown core vs. out to the airport... but Dallas and Fort Worth have downtowns that are separated by 30 miles, with the airport in between. And on top of that, the two cities very seldom come together on regional planning issues, with DFW airport itself being the notable exception (and one that was somewhat forced on the cities by the feds in the early '70s).
> 
> Here's some tidbits:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tarrant County _[Fort Worth side]_ Commissioner Gary Fickes is among those who favors 200-mph trains on elevated tracks -- possibly on right of way along Texas 360 in Arlington -- to one station at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. From there, a passenger could hop on a train and be in Houston in about 80 minutes, stopping only a few times to pick up passengers along the 250-mile journey.
> Such a system would cost much more than other proposals but could be privately funded, and would be better for the state long term, Fickes argues. A Japanese company has already moved to Texas to put together a bullet-train proposal.
> 
> 
> 
> My thoughts on the matter: While I would love to see a high-speed rail terminal in downtown, it would require massive displacement of existing homes and businesses, and would be difficult to route around those damned freeways that choke off both downtown cores like a noose. Also, there's no long-term parking in either downtown core, and I think Texas high-speed rail will be much better off if it doesn't have to rely solely upon those city dwellers who have decided to go car-free. Each one of those issues is fully addressed by routing HSR to DFW Airport.
> 
> Also from the article:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that $15 million had been awarded to Texas for design of a high-speed rail line connecting Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston.
> It was part of a $2 billion program that included the redistribution of money initially awarded to Florida for development of a high-speed-rail line from Tampa to Orlando.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Please let me say a big Texas "Thank y'all" to Florida, for turning your backs on that awful Federal money. It's tainted, of course, but we'll make the great sacrifice of spending it for you. Y'all keep up the good work.
Click to expand...

The original post has been edited to comply with the copy write guidelines found HERE


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## stntylr

I think it would be very hard to do a 220 mph train in Texas. Using emminent domanin to get that much land will be very tough. Right now TXDOT plan is to use existing rail rightof ways between the cities. They know money isn't coming from the state and they are trying to do it as cheaply as possible.

I have no idea where you could build a HSR station in Houston. The place is pretty congested. A lower speed that would use an existing right of way could be built from downtown to downtown. The TXDOT grant application mentions running trains like this at 150mph. It also gives a strong implication the the while they will study three routes the most likely is the BNSF route which goes through nowhere between the cities.

Two week ago I sent a message to TXDOT asking some questions about the HSR plan but haven't gotten an answe back.


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## Devil's Advocate

stntylr said:


> Using emminent domanin to get that much land will be very tough.


Imminent domain is unlikely to be used for long distance passenger rail as the cost would be far too great for a bankrupt state like Texas to purchase that much land. We simply don't have enough teachers left to fire to recoup that kind of outlay.



stntylr said:


> Right now TXDOT plan is to use existing rail rightof ways between the cities. They know money isn't coming from the state and they are trying to do it as cheaply as possible.


Existing ROW would be subject to the same delays our current service is subject to. If and when the economy ever picks up those delays are likely to return in full force. At that time our passenger rail network can either accept large numbers of late trains or they can pad the schedule to the point that trains will still arrive on time. Either way they open themselves to persistent ridicule.


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## stntylr

So neither imminent domain or a current ROW can be used.

All that would be left is laying track up the center of the interstates.

I read the TXDOT grant proposal. 3 routes were proposed between Houston and Dallas. One on UP track which would pass through College Station. One on the BNSF route would doesn't pass through any cities. And one which would use the UP route up through Conroe and Huntsville then a new line would be built along I-45 to Corsicana.

It also said they were looking at 150 mph trains to run from downtown to downtown. It doesn't mention it but the Houston Station which is owned by UP would almost have to be rebuilt. At least there is room around the area to bring in an electrified line. Dallas' Union Station has no room for any extra track.

I sure wouldn't put a station in Arlington, they have made it very clear they do not want to spend a penny on mass transit so why give them a HSR station.


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## RobertB

daxomni said:


> I've been living in Texas since the mid 1980's and I say with some confidence that there will never be a major HSR network in this state in my lifetime. Passenger rail is (rightly) viewed as a threat to our local airlines, bus lines & charter companies, rental car companies, and tollway operators. I've watched their lobbying groups kill similar projects in the past and I have no doubt they could kill any future attempt just as easily as the last one.


Southwest Airlines was a huge and vocal opponent of enhanced rail options in the '80s (which is also when I moved to Dallas, cool). But from what I read on the DallasMetropolis.com forums, they are no longer voicing opposition to the plan. Short-haul routes just aren't as profitable as they used to be, especially now that the time spent makin' whoopee with the TSA is now comparable to the drive time from Dallas to Austin on a good day (and that's before even arriving at the gate). With their purchase of AirTran, Southwest's focus may shift even more towards medium-haul domestic destinations as well as Mexico/Carribean... which means they may see HSR as a feeder, not a competitor.



MrFSS said:


> The original post has been edited to comply with the copy write guidelines found HERE


Sorry about that! I pared the article down in my original post, but apparently this board's guidelines are more strict than I expected. Understandably so, given the board's nationwide scope and visibility. I'll be more circumspect in the future.



daxomni said:


> Imminent domain is unlikely to be used for long distance passenger rail as the cost would be far too great for a bankrupt state like Texas to purchase that much land. We simply don't have enough teachers left to fire to recoup that kind of outlay.


Texas, bankrupt? Hogwash. We haven't even gone through the firefighters and policemen yet! (Seriously, if Perry doesn't think this is enough of a "Rainy Day" to tap into the eponymous Fund, I'd hate to see his idea of stormy weather.) (But I'm afraid I will soon.)

ps: _Eminent_ Domain


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## Devil's Advocate

stntylr said:


> So neither imminent domain or a current ROW can be used. All that would be left is laying track up the center of the interstates.


Which was the core aspect of the last major proposal, and that one was quickly and easily felled by the lobbyists of competing interests. Bottom line, it isn't going to happen. I wish it wasn't so, but nothing I've read since the last big bust has given any indication that things are any different now than they were back then. We're still at the mercy of people who don't have our best interests at heart just like we were back then. The one and only chance for large scale HSR in America is along the West Coast. Those members who couldn't care less if California succeeds or fails must not yet realize that if California can't find a way to make it work then there will be no financial or political capital left over to restart the HSR bandwagon again afterward.


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## VentureForth

RobertB said:


> The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that a rift has developed between some of the backers of high-speed rail in Texas. It's a classic dispute, with a twist. I would think that many cities have had a debate about whether to run HSR into the downtown core vs. out to the airport... but Dallas and Fort Worth have downtowns that are separated by 30 miles, with the airport in between. And on top of that, the two cities very seldom come together on regional planning issues, with DFW airport itself being the notable exception (and one that was somewhat forced on the cities by the feds in the early '70s).
> 
> Here's some tidbits:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tarrant County _[Fort Worth side]_ Commissioner Gary Fickes is among those who favors 200-mph trains on elevated tracks -- possibly on right of way along Texas 360 in Arlington -- to one station at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. From there, a passenger could hop on a train and be in Houston in about 80 minutes, stopping only a few times to pick up passengers along the 250-mile journey.
> Such a system would cost much more than other proposals but could be privately funded, and would be better for the state long term, Fickes argues. A Japanese company has already moved to Texas to put together a bullet-train proposal.
> 
> 
> 
> My thoughts on the matter: While I would love to see a high-speed rail terminal in downtown, it would require massive displacement of existing homes and businesses, and would be difficult to route around those damned freeways that choke off both downtown cores like a noose. Also, there's no long-term parking in either downtown core, and I think Texas high-speed rail will be much better off if it doesn't have to rely solely upon those city dwellers who have decided to go car-free. Each one of those issues is fully addressed by routing HSR to DFW Airport.
> 
> Also from the article:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that $15 million had been awarded to Texas for design of a high-speed rail line connecting Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston.
> It was part of a $2 billion program that included the redistribution of money initially awarded to Florida for development of a high-speed-rail line from Tampa to Orlando.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Please let me say a big Texas "Thank y'all" to Florida, for turning your backs on that awful Federal money. It's tainted, of course, but we'll make the great sacrifice of spending it for you. Y'all keep up the good work.
Click to expand...

What on Earth can Texas do for $15 Mil (245 miles) that Florida can't do for $2 Bil (85 miles)? $15 Mil won't get you from Union Station to the Trinity River. Dallas and Houston are MUCH higher travelled city pairs especially when compared to Tampa - Orlando. The distance is just right, too. The biggest problem is there is ABSOLUTELY no viable city to service in between.


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## Devil's Advocate

RobertB said:


> Southwest Airlines was a huge and vocal opponent of enhanced rail options in the '80s (which is also when I moved to Dallas, cool). But from what I read on the DallasMetropolis.com forums, they are no longer voicing opposition to the plan.


It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.



RobertB said:


> Short-haul routes just aren't as profitable as they used to be, especially now that the time spent makin' whoopee with the TSA is now comparable to the drive time from Dallas to Austin on a good day (and that's before even arriving at the gate).


I've yet to have a single flight to either Dallas or Houston that consumed as much time as driving there, TSA and all.



RobertB said:


> Texas, bankrupt? Hogwash. We haven't even gone through the firefighters and policemen yet!


Firefighters and Policemen tend to vote center-right so they are often spared many embarrassments more liberal unions must suffer. Divide and conquer is the name of the game. In any case thanks for the correction about the spelling of eminent domain!



VentureForth said:


> What on Earth can Texas do for $15 Mil (245 miles) that Florida can't do for $2 Bil (85 miles)?


I don't think it's intended to actually _do_ anything. Frankly I think even $15M is too much to waste on Texas. The feds need to get one single project up and running quickly rather than spreading miniscule funding across dozens of unrelated projects that won't add much if any momentum on their own.


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## George Harris

Planning and study money is for the purpose of looking like you are doing something without really doing anything. The other question is who is getting the job. Some of these are paybacks for political favors given to Joe Smucks business who knows nothing of significance on the subject. There are a few companies out there that do have people that really know what they are doing, but not many.


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## Anderson

*sighs*

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I do see this sort of thing as why many rail projects should be handled at the federal level (where those local interests have less of a chance to muck up things). There are times and places that you've just got to make plans to stick the rail line in and run state-level opposition over. Florida is a wonderful case in point, as is Wisconsin...I would have loved to see Rick Scott and Scott Walker try to refuse the projects only to find that the feds had taken them entirely out of their hands and were putting them in anyway.

Of course, I say this because I _do_ believe that once you get these lines in place and have them operating for 5-10 years, they'll become a _lot_ harder to kill off, and you can start forcing at least some costs back to the states in question. The federal government is probably better-suited to getting projects built than a lot of states are...though even there, obviously, the mechanisms are far from perfect.


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## Devil's Advocate

Anderson said:


> I hate to sound like a broken record, but I do see this sort of thing as why many rail projects should be handled at the federal level (where those local interests have less of a chance to muck up things). There are times and places that you've just got to make plans to stick the rail line in and run state-level opposition over. Florida is a wonderful case in point, as is Wisconsin...I would have loved to see Rick Scott and Scott Walker try to refuse the projects only to find that the feds had taken them entirely out of their hands and were putting them in anyway.


There are still several pro-rail states that would be thrilled to receive additional funding. Why not simply give that funding and the jobs that go with it to the states the actually want it? Maybe after all those states have functional systems we can worry about the anti-rail states. Keep in mind that Florida is one of those exceedingly rare swing states that the executive branch still pays attention to, so you probably won't see anyone pushing them around for the time being. Texas isn't a swing state but neither is there is anything to be gained by forcing passenger rail on us. Nothing ticks off a Texan more than being offered help from the federal government. Our governor has repeatedly threatened to secede from the union in retaliation for having to include uninsured and underinsured Texans in the upcoming universal health care system and for being asked to accept federal funds in the form of extended unemployment benefits on behalf of jobless recession era Texans. What I don't think most people outside of Texas understand is that Rick Perry isn't just another dumb-as-nails Bush appointee, he actually understands the Texan psyche perfectly. Here in Texas we'd rather go down in flames, literally, than let the federal government lend us a hand and Rick Perry gets that.


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## GlobalistPotato

You know DFW-HOU HSR is off to a bad start when people think the $15 million grant is for the ACTUAL line, not the study for the line.

And then it'd take about 1-2 years for TxDOT to make a 150 page report that basically confirms MY GRAND IDEAS!!! 

And then the question comes: Where will we get the money?

I dunno. I hope that Amtrak puts in some suggestions, as they actually know what they're doing.

Because Texas has very little intercity rail service and particularly NO direct service between Dallas and Houston, there's going to be a complex series of options.

This compares with the NEC where the only step is bringing the railroad up to a state of good repair and build a true HSR line.

Or in California where there's already corridor service, and the biggest bang-for-your-buck would be connecting the Central Valley line to LA.

In Texas, there are several places where borderline HSR (~200 km/h) or true HSR (250-350km/h) can be placed or paralleled: Railroads (which would have to have curve easements to allow higher speeds), Interstate Highways (Wide grassy mediums are the best for that, urban ones wouldn't be cheap), New ROW (almost all in the countryside), or next to high-voltage power lines (if they're straight as an arrow for dozens of miles).

HSR wouldn't have to knock down homes and businesses in populated areas because either a) The true HSR line bypasses the populated area or b) The HSR line goes along the existing railroads in the populated area, even if it has to go less than 200 km/h.

Also, references to speeds of HSR lines around the world have to be converted into imperial units, because there's too many cases where people confuse km/h with MPH. :help: No people, there aren't 300 mph high-speed trains around the world.

@Anderson, there are forces that could derail this plan at a federal level, plus the Feds need to reform their grant process for HSR (Hey, there's a lot of things that need to be reformed up in Washington!  ).

If Texas designed the project, then they would probably aim for a 200 km/h design, as that's all that would be needed to connect the major cities within the Texas Triangle with travel times of 3.5 hours or less. If the feds were planning the system as part of a national network, they'd probably aim for 300-400 km/h, so that Oklahoma and Louisiana can have competitive travel times to cities in Texas.


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## Anderson

daxomni said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> 
> I hate to sound like a broken record, but I do see this sort of thing as why many rail projects should be handled at the federal level (where those local interests have less of a chance to muck up things). There are times and places that you've just got to make plans to stick the rail line in and run state-level opposition over. Florida is a wonderful case in point, as is Wisconsin...I would have loved to see Rick Scott and Scott Walker try to refuse the projects only to find that the feds had taken them entirely out of their hands and were putting them in anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> There are still several pro-rail states that would be thrilled to receive additional funding. Why not simply give that funding and the jobs that go with it to the states the actually want it? Maybe after all those states have functional systems we can worry about the anti-rail states. Keep in mind that Florida is one of those exceedingly rare swing states that the executive branch still pays attention to, so you probably won't see anyone pushing them around for the time being. Texas isn't a swing state but neither is there is anything to be gained by forcing passenger rail on us. Nothing ticks off a Texan more than being offered help from the federal government. Our governor has repeatedly threatened to secede from the union in retaliation for having to include uninsured and underinsured Texans in the upcoming universal health care system and for being asked to accept federal funds in the form of extended unemployment benefits on behalf of jobless recession era Texans. What I don't think most people outside of Texas understand is that Rick Perry isn't just another dumb-as-nails Bush appointee, he actually understands the Texan psyche perfectly. Here in Texas we'd rather go down in flames, literally, than let the federal government lend us a hand and Rick Perry gets that.
Click to expand...

Wisconsin is probably the poster child for where forcing rail makes sense: Minnesota and Illinois "get it", as does Michigan. Wisconsin is being difficult...it would have been far better, ultimately, to jam some of the Florida money onto the Wisconsin project.

As to why we can't just put it in where there's support, there are two reasons:

1) In the case of WI, you have one state in the middle that is blocking up a multistate project. To a lesser extent, Indiana could fall into this category if it started mucking up the Chicago-Detroit corridor. If you can get most of the states onboard a project, dragging one in the middle along makes sense. For another example of this, if you could get VA, NC, and GA to agree on a rail project from WAS-ATL and SC got in the way...the line goes in with or without SC's approval.

2) More importantly, though, I think we need to expand where there's good rail service beyond those areas where it has support at present. The NEC, CA, IL, and MI aren't _quite_ enough...you've got to add some places to those core areas. Right now, it's basically a red-vs-blue issue...you _need_ to push beyond that.

As to FL...I think the situation there _is_ a bit more complicated: The legislature seemed to want the rail line. The people seem to want it. The only thing getting in the way was the Governor...and Rick Scott is the sort of guy you want on the other guy's team. As I understand it, he's not popular in Florida and he killed a popular project. If anything, I'd be wheeling and dealing with the legislature to commit to loading this into a later budget (FL is very rider-resistant) and pushing the project forward around the Governor's objection while pulling it from his jurisdiction. But in that case, you'd be "forcing" the project on the Governor but more or less acting at the behest of the legislature and the population at large (at least as I understand it).


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## henryj

daxomni said:


> I've been living in Texas since the mid 1980's and I say with some confidence that there will never be a major HSR network in this state in my lifetime.



Nor in mine and I have lived here all my life. I even rode trains between Houston and Dallas many times. They could start service right now if they wanted too. The BNSF line between Dallas and Houston is lightly used and in good shape. Until the mid 1960's service on this line was four hours between Dallas and Houston. With a little fixing up they could better that easily. Houston Metro has plans for a nice multi-modal transit facility on North Main that would serve it's light rail line, commuter trains and inter-city trains, all they have to do is build it. Dallas has it's Union Station and Fort Worth has it's practically new inter-modal station. The trains could stop at a DFW station on the way to Fort Worth from Dallas. It's not rocket science. These people simply have no common sense. Not only will this never 'fly', the $15 million will just be money burned up with no results.

All over Europe these so called high speed trains use conventional tracks to get into the downtown stations. Texas could do the same. It doesn't require some special elevated ROW to get into the downtowns. Suggestions like this from these so called 'experts' just display their total ignorance about the subject they are addressing.


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## Eric S

Anderson said:


> Wisconsin is probably the poster child for where forcing rail makes sense: Minnesota and Illinois "get it", as does Michigan. Wisconsin is being difficult...it would have been far better, ultimately, to jam some of the Florida money onto the Wisconsin project.
> 
> As to why we can't just put it in where there's support, there are two reasons:
> 
> 1) In the case of WI, you have one state in the middle that is blocking up a multistate project. To a lesser extent, Indiana could fall into this category if it started mucking up the Chicago-Detroit corridor. If you can get most of the states onboard a project, dragging one in the middle along makes sense. For another example of this, if you could get VA, NC, and GA to agree on a rail project from WAS-ATL and SC got in the way...the line goes in with or without SC's approval.
> 
> 2) More importantly, though, I think we need to expand where there's good rail service beyond those areas where it has support at present. The NEC, CA, IL, and MI aren't _quite_ enough...you've got to add some places to those core areas. Right now, it's basically a red-vs-blue issue...you _need_ to push beyond that.
> 
> As to FL...I think the situation there _is_ a bit more complicated: The legislature seemed to want the rail line. The people seem to want it. The only thing getting in the way was the Governor...and Rick Scott is the sort of guy you want on the other guy's team. As I understand it, he's not popular in Florida and he killed a popular project. If anything, I'd be wheeling and dealing with the legislature to commit to loading this into a later budget (FL is very rider-resistant) and pushing the project forward around the Governor's objection while pulling it from his jurisdiction. But in that case, you'd be "forcing" the project on the Governor but more or less acting at the behest of the legislature and the population at large (at least as I understand it).


There is/was a key distinction between WI & FL: The WI project was fully funded by the feds with respect to initial construction costs, but the state was expected to pay the ongoing operating costs/subsidies; whereas the FL project was not expected to need any ongoing operating subsidies. If it is simply a construction effort, funding the project through Amtrak would be a way around any "difficult" state, but it is the operating subsidies that can't exactly be forced upon that state. (I should mention that I am a WI resident who completely supported the MKE-MSN project, including state operating subsidies.)

As far as the CHI-DET corridor, so long as IN is not expected to contribute to the project, I see no reason why that state would muck it up. Frankly, the portion through northwest Indiana and into Chicago ought to be more of a federal/Amtrak-led effort anyway, given the extent to which it benefits nearly all trains that serve CHI from anywhere to the east (whether it's Detroit, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, New York, Washington, etc.).


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## stntylr

henryj said:


> daxomni said:
> 
> 
> 
> I've been living in Texas since the mid 1980's and I say with some confidence that there will never be a major HSR network in this state in my lifetime.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nor in mine and I have lived here all my life. I even rode trains between Houston and Dallas many times. They could start service right now if they wanted too. The BNSF line between Dallas and Houston is lightly used and in good shape. Until the mid 1960's service on this line was four hours between Dallas and Houston. With a little fixing up they could better that easily. Houston Metro has plans for a nice multi-modal transit facility on North Main that would serve it's light rail line, commuter trains and inter-city trains, all they have to do is build it. Dallas has it's Union Station and Fort Worth has it's practically new inter-modal station. The trains could stop at a DFW station on the way to Fort Worth from Dallas. It's not rocket science. These people simply have no common sense. Not only will this never 'fly', the $15 million will just be money burned up with no results.
> 
> All over Europe these so called high speed trains use conventional tracks to get into the downtown stations. Texas could do the same. It doesn't require some special elevated ROW to get into the downtowns. Suggestions like this from these so called 'experts' just display their total ignorance about the subject they are addressing.
Click to expand...

Houston metro cancelled the plans for the intermodel station last year due to budget problems.


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## henryj

stntylr said:


> Houston metro cancelled the plans for the intermodel station last year due to budget problems.


I am quite aware of that. However, 15 million would go a long way toward building it wouldn't it. Just because it has been cancelled doesn't mean it has gone away or will never be built. Right now there is simply no need for it as Houston has no commuter trains or any plans to have any in the near future nor will it have any inter-city trains any time soon. We are doing good to just keep the Sunset Limited three times a week.


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## saxman

henryj said:


> All over Europe these so called high speed trains use conventional tracks to get into the downtown stations. Texas could do the same. It doesn't require some special elevated ROW to get into the downtowns. Suggestions like this from these so called 'experts' just display their total ignorance about the subject they are addressing.


I totally agree with this! Although I've said many times that is disagree with building true HSR in Texas until we actually get some corridor service, but when/if it comes, you have to build to downtowns. Are people that ride the system going to want to go to the airport or go downtown? My non-scientific opinion is that most will want to go downtown. If they wanted to go to the airport they would have just flown from Houston, unless of course they got on at a smaller town and planned to fly.

However, this whole airport vs. downtown can easily be solved if the line stopped in DT Dallas and continued on the TRE ROW to make a stop at the airport and onto DT Ft. Worth. I'm no track engineer, but is there anything that stops a 200 mph trainset traveling on conventional rail? As Henry states, I don't think so. Acela does this all along the NEC.

Dallas Union Station has plenty of room for expansion. Somewhere I saw planners want to move the UP line and reroute freights outside of downtown. Not sure about that one though. There's also a big area right beside Union Station thats just a parking lot. And there's the area where Reunion Arena once stood on the other side of the tracks.


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## saxman

daxomni said:


> It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.


Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?

And Continental is really now part of United. They have many other money making markets they can be concentrating on. Not a couple of regional flights between IAH and DAL or College Station.



RobertB said:


> Short-haul routes just aren't as profitable as they used to be, especially now that the time spent makin' whoopee with the TSA is now comparable to the drive time from Dallas to Austin on a good day (and that's before even arriving at the gate).


I wish I had the numbers with me, but the number of passengers that Southwest carried between DAL and HOU back in 1990 is somewhat more than what it is today. They use to fly every half hour between the two all day long, but now you can see they've cut back their mid-day service to only once an hour. (morning and afternoon is still every half hour)


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## Anderson

I think we may have a false dichotomy...why not run full-speed HSR into downtown Dallas, and then run the trains out to DFW (or both DFW and LUV), potentially on the way to Fort Worth (yes, I know the Dallas airport alignment makes a mess of this)? I know it would make TRE mostly redundant (and you'd probably want a slightly different alignment so you could actually run the train near the DFW terminal), but there's no reason you can't do a variation on both. Likewise, if you back down the speed (say, to a top speed of 110 MPH) within the DFW metro area, there's no reason you can't run other local trains on the route as long as you make pass-through allowances and/or juggle scheduling. There's _also_ no reason you couldn't terminate some trains in downtown Dallas if track capacity became an issue.


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## stntylr

By 2014 Dart, Dallas light rail will connect to DFW. It won't go straight from Union Station but one could make a connection from an Union Station light rail train to DFW.

When Fort Worth gets it's Tarrant Express going one could ride a commuter train from the Fort Worth ITC straight into DFW.


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## henryj

Something to think about in all this. California and Oregon/Washington get along just fine with conventional trains running at reasonable speeds on freight owned tracks. Texas could easily do the same. True high speed rail is extremely expensive and requires a separate and completely new row. When the Burlington/RI ran trains between Houston and Dallas on a four hour timing up into the 1960's they did it on jointed rail with only block signals, hand thrown switches for the sidings and written train orders. You would think that now 50 years later with space age technology they could easily do better just with conventional trains.


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## Eric S

henryj said:


> Something to think about in all this. *California and Oregon/Washington get along just fine with conventional trains running at reasonable speeds on freight owned tracks.* Texas could easily do the same. True high speed rail is extremely expensive and requires a separate and completely new row. When the Burlington/RI ran trains between Houston and Dallas on a four hour timing up into the 1960's they did it on jointed rail with only block signals, hand thrown switches for the sidings and written train orders. You would think that now 50 years later with space age technology they could easily do better just with conventional trains.


Add NC-VA and IL-MI-WI as well.

It's hard to imagine that a state (TX) that is unwilling/unable to operate 79-110mph Amtrak trains will suddenly be willing and able to build and operate 150-220mph HSR. If it is, then more power to 'em. But generally I'd think you'd want to establish at least a small network of conventional (79-90, maybe 110 mph) trains before embarking on a full scale HSR project.


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## George Harris

henryj said:


> When the Burlington/RI ran trains between Houston and Dallas on a four hour timing up into the 1960's they did it on jointed rail with only block signals, hand thrown switches for the sidings and written train orders. You would think that now 50 years later with space age technology they could easily do better just with conventional trains.


It was even wilder than that. Reading a 1947 or thereabouts accident report, they were running with a speed limit of 90 mph on an unsignaled line controlled only by timetable and train orders on track of 90 lb/yd jointed rail, and of course many road crossing having only a crossbuck sign. A railroad management proposing such today would be lucky to avoid jail time. To be able to run that fast now would require welded rail, full signals with ATS or ATC, flashers and gates at road crossings. In other words, a complete rebuild of the track that is there now, even if it is in welded rail, it certainly does not meet FRA standards for 90 mph operation, and 90 mph will not give you a highway competitive end to end time.


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## rrdude

daxomni said:


> It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.


Know what I'd like to see on one of these HSR projects? A company like Southwest bid on running it, (subcontracting of course to a real rail-transit company) or even Virgin-America. It would totally shift the public's mind set on HSR, and to a lesser extent, pax rail traffic in general.

Think outside the box SWA, (you usually do btw, kudos!) do something GRAND, unexpected, different. *SLAPS HEAD* Dang, I caught myself dreamin' again..............


----------



## jis

saxman said:


> daxomni said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.
> 
> 
> 
> Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?
> 
> And Continental is really now part of United. They have many other money making markets they can be concentrating on. Not a couple of regional flights between IAH and DAL or College Station.
Click to expand...

Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United. But they do feed traffic into routes that do make money. United's biggest money making routes are the Internationals. I doubt that they would be too worried if some other mode were to feed the same traffic. This is very different from SWA's situation back then when the Texas routes were its bread and butter. As one might have noticed even they have grown and spread their wings a bit since then.


----------



## Anderson

jis said:


> saxman said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> daxomni said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.
> 
> 
> 
> Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?
> 
> And Continental is really now part of United. They have many other money making markets they can be concentrating on. Not a couple of regional flights between IAH and DAL or College Station.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United. But they do feed traffic into routes that do make money. United's biggest money making routes are the Internationals. I doubt that they would be too worried if some other mode were to feed the same traffic. This is very different from SWA's situation back then when the Texas routes were its bread and butter. As one might have noticed even they have grown and spread their wings a bit since then.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering..._do_ those regional flights make money? I know there are some routes (international ones in particular) that show a profit, but do the regional flights manage to break even, or do the airlines eat losses there to "fund" the main routes?

Edit: To explain the question, there are a couple of markets that it would seem to make sense just to kill off air service in and run trains out of. Des Moines is probably the worst offender in this regard (as it is, getting to Chicago is faster if you fly DSM-MKE and then get on the Hiawatha at Milwaukee than to take a plane the whole way). Even at $100 for a one-way coach seat, you'd be looking at about 1/3 of the cost per passenger for a train link from Des Moines to O'Hare...and Des Moines-KCY or Des Moines-MSP would seem to offer similar advantages (in the case of Des Moines-KCY...as far as I can tell, that route doesn't even_ exist_ for the airlines anymore).


----------



## Devil's Advocate

saxman said:


> Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?


I think it would be hard to find two large and populous states that were any more removed from each other than Texas and California are. One is a huge proponent of modern and efficient passenger rail and the other is the world's largest market for perpetually empty pickup trucks. Southwest also has much deeper roots and much more pull in a state like Texas than they do in a state like California. In the end we may never hear that "airline 'X' has directly attacked HSR project 'Y'" as those decisions will be made at the lobbying group level and will be directed and paid for by several airlines acting together under appropriate cover. It won't matter if any one airline is too busy to keep up with each and every development, the lobbying group will be able to research and prioritized those efforts on their own. Some efforts require getting the public involved, but in this case all the airline lobbying groups have to do is ensure enough anti-rail politicians have sufficient funding to be competitive and many of their potential HSR problems will be delayed at least another decade or two.



jis said:


> Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United.


I don't think UA's view of the earning potential for regional flights is going to be the primary decision making point for the airline lobbying groups that will actually be fighting this war. Instead I think we need to look at the bigger picture. In places like Europe and Japan short haul flying has been successfully challenged by HSR for decades. Multiple flag carriers have had to merge or fold. Others have had scale back short haul operations and focus on long-haul intercontinental flights as the primary source of revenue. In the case of more recent converts like Taiwan, domestic flights have been decimated by modern HSR. Even Amtrak's half-speed HSR has managed to successfully challenge the North Eastern air shuttles in the world's largest domestic airline market. If HSR takes off nationwide then domestic flights stand to suffer substantial losses in key markets over time. This is not something that several of the largest airlines on Earth are going to just sit back and watch happen. They and other industry groups that stand to lose profits and revenue are the very folks who have been giving the anti-rail politicians their marching orders when they suddenly started challenging resurgent HSR projects as a primary platform position in the last year or so.


----------



## Anderson

Dax: As bad as it sounds, the answer is probably to fight for a few of these links at the state level. An arrangement like VA has with Amtrak

The more this goes through my mind, the more I'm wondering about restoring MSP-Des Moines service alongside Des Moines-Chicago service. Des Moines isn't going to be a hub anytime soon, but you could piggyback it on limited MSP and/or KCY operations. Who owns that particular Rock Island route (MSP-KCY)?


----------



## GlobalistPotato

daxomni said:


> I don't think UA's view of the earning potential for regional flights is going to be the primary decision making point for the airline lobbying groups that will actually be fighting this war. Instead I think we need to look at the bigger picture. In places like Europe and Japan short haul flying has been successfully challenged by HSR for decades. Multiple flag carriers have had to merge or fold. Others have had scale back short haul operations and focus on long-haul intercontinental flights as the primary source of revenue. In the case of more recent converts like Taiwan, domestic flights have been decimated by modern HSR. Even Amtrak's half-speed HSR has managed to successfully challenge the North Eastern air shuttles in the world's largest domestic airline market. If HSR takes off nationwide then domestic flights stand to suffer substantial losses in key markets over time. This is not something that several of the largest airlines on Earth are going to just sit back and watch happen. They and other industry groups that stand to lose profits and revenue are the very folks who have been giving the anti-rail politicians their marching orders when they suddenly started challenging resurgent HSR projects as a primary platform position in the last year or so.


While I can definitely see that being the case (HSR taking over air markets) for the short-haul markets, anyone knows that medium and long distance flights will still be competitive and viable against even true-HSR. Keep in mind the old "the US is so big" argument. Although HSR would probably have most of the market share between Dallas and Houston, most travelers who are going from Texas to California, or Texas to New York, or Texas to Chicago, or any other inter-megaregional market, will prefer to take a plane. Especially with the old case of NY-LA. Even among the strong advocates of HSR, they relise that the flying will be the prefered option unless there's a change in technology or the markets.

Of course many of us on AU would still prefer to take the train on long distances, but most people will still fly. :giggle:

So maybe the airlines that focus on medium and long distance flights should be told that their business is safe even in the event of true-HSR.

Hey, maybe the airlines could redeploy their assests out of contested markets and serve the areas that are too small to be included in an HSR system, like Des Moines! :lol:



Anderson said:


> Dax: As bad as it sounds, the answer is probably to fight for a few of these links at the state level. An arrangement like VA has with Amtrak
> 
> The more this goes through my mind, the more I'm wondering about restoring MSP-Des Moines service alongside Des Moines-Chicago service. Des Moines isn't going to be a hub anytime soon, but you could piggyback it on limited MSP and/or KCY operations. Who owns that particular Rock Island route (MSP-KCY)?


I actually looked at a LD route for Amtrak that would run parallel to I-35 between SAS or Laredo and MSP or Duluth. I'd call it the "I-35er", or "NAFTA trader". The closest thing to that would be Rock Island's Twin Star Rocket. It made the run in about 25 hours, at an average speed of 56 mph. Here's the old schdules.

http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track9/twinstar194508.html


----------



## Devil's Advocate

GlobalistPotato said:


> While I can definitely see that being the case (HSR taking over air markets) for the short-haul markets, anyone knows that medium and long distance flights will still be competitive and viable against even true-HSR. Keep in mind the old "the US is so big" argument.


It's possible that US is also big enough and rich enough (if sufficient cutbacks were made elsewhere) to allow for the creation of overnight HSR routes that could conceivably challenge even medium haul flights. The only markets that are truly safe from any potential interference are those that can't be reached by rail at all. These sorts of developments will not be quick or easy. And they may not mean as much to more traditional fortress-hub airlines with a large international presence, but for a domestically focused entities like Southwest, medium-length flights still form the backbone of their network. They have the motivation, the ability, and the will to fight passenger rail and they don't even need to spend all that much or risk seeing their name in the paper to do so. What I'm mainly getting at is that they are not going to remain on the sidelines forever and some of the anti-rail sentiment we're already seeing is likely funded and directed by those to stand to lose some of the revenue down the road.


----------



## Anderson

daxomni said:


> GlobalistPotato said:
> 
> 
> 
> While I can definitely see that being the case (HSR taking over air markets) for the short-haul markets, anyone knows that medium and long distance flights will still be competitive and viable against even true-HSR. Keep in mind the old "the US is so big" argument.
> 
> 
> 
> It's possible that US is also big enough and rich enough (if sufficient cutbacks were made elsewhere) to allow for the creation of overnight HSR routes that could conceivably challenge even medium haul flights. The only markets that are truly safe from any potential interference are those that can't be reached by rail at all. These sorts of developments will not be quick or easy. And they may not mean as much to more traditional fortress-hub airlines with a large international presence, but for a domestically focused entities like Southwest, medium-length flights still form the backbone of their network. They have the motivation, the ability, and the will to fight passenger rail and they don't even need to spend all that much or risk seeing their name in the paper to do so. What I'm mainly getting at is that they are not going to remain on the sidelines forever and some of the anti-rail sentiment we're already seeing is likely funded and directed by those to stand to lose some of the revenue down the road.
Click to expand...

I think there are some routes that are more or less safe from HSR competition...the average speeds needed to run NYC-LA overnight are just mind-bogglingly unrealistic (300 MPH average...just not a viable speed, period). That said, an average speed of 80-100 MPH (close to what a lot of "true" HSR caps out at because of stops, dwell time, buffer time, curves you can't take at 200 MPH, etc.) puts most major markets east of the Mississippi back in range (with some exceptions, of course...Boston-New Orleans isn't happening, for example).

The big thing would be to start pitching rail service to those places where the airlines are charging _way_ too much (Des Moines comes to mind, as usual; I've heard Roanoke, VA is another nasty offender). Considering the lean of many of the city councils in major cities, and considering the cost associated with attracting new airlines in some cases (I know a lot went into wooing a low cost airline to Newport News/Williamsburg International), a bit of the "stick" may be in order (i.e. "Get your fares down or we cut a deal with Amtrak.") instead of just the carrot. It's one of the few cases where I think there's clear room to get the local business community onside without too much difficulty: They're getting screwed by this as well since they often don't have the resources to do the secured-seat deals that a major company can do, so they're having to charge off thousands of dollars in excess flight costs (and yes, "thousands of dollars" only requires 4-5 flights per year in a lot of cases, if that). The timings wouldn't necessarily be great, but pointing out the fact that even a 110 MPH connection would be faster to get to Chicago (for Des Moines) at 40% of the cost of a round trip airfare (assuming $200 round trip vs. $500-600 for a lot of airfares...and of course, that gets egregiously bad on short notice). Roanoke is another case where I think you could massacre the airlines on cost (Roanoke-Washington runs no less than $550/trip, and having made that drive once or twice...it can be a bear). Roanoke-Hampton Roads is even worse ($800 is the cheapest I could find...even flexing dates a bit only gets you down to about $700 before taxes, and often involves awkward flight routing through New York or Atlanta that I think you could beat the timing of via train).


----------



## George Harris

Anderson said:


> The more this goes through my mind, the more I'm wondering about restoring MSP-Des Moines service alongside Des Moines-Chicago service. Des Moines isn't going to be a hub anytime soon, but you could piggyback it on limited MSP and/or KCY operations. Who owns that particular Rock Island route (MSP-KCY)?


Union Pacific


----------



## saxman

jis said:


> saxman said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> daxomni said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.
> 
> 
> 
> Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?
> 
> And Continental is really now part of United. They have many other money making markets they can be concentrating on. Not a couple of regional flights between IAH and DAL or College Station.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United. But they do feed traffic into routes that do make money. United's biggest money making routes are the Internationals. I doubt that they would be too worried if some other mode were to feed the same traffic. This is very different from SWA's situation back then when the Texas routes were its bread and butter. As one might have noticed even they have grown and spread their wings a bit since then.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong. Trust me when I say I want those regional flights to be around! I tend to depend on them right now.



> I'm wondering...do those regional flights make money? I know there are some routes (international ones in particular) that show a profit, but do the regional flights manage to break even, or do the airlines eat losses there to "fund" the main routes?


Yes and no. Many regional flights DO make money. Of course things get complicated when you consider when most regional flight connect to other flights, but there are still several routes the mainly serve O&D passengers. One expample is that Delta recently built up direct flights from Raleigh-Durham. Using mostly 50 seat jets, they started flights to St. Louis, Orlando, Tampa, Columbus, Indy, and Hartford; all non-Delta hubs. Other short flights I can think of include Detroit to Saginaw and Detroit to Kalamazoo. Delta has 7 flights a day between these really short city pairs; a driving (or train time) of just 2 hours or so.

With that said though, many smaller regional jets are going to go away, especially the older 50 seaters. The cost of operating a 50 seater vs. a 65 or 70 seater is almost a wash.


----------



## Anderson

Hmm...I'm surprised that short-haul regional flights are workable as anything but feeders. I know I don't want to drive to Dulles or BWI to hop an international flight, but there are dental surgeries I would prefer to flying up to Washington. Then again, it may be that a lot of these _are_ running as inter-carrier feeders...and it's also quite possible that a lot of what's going on here is more codesharing than actual flight proliferation.


----------



## trainviews

stntylr said:


> I have no idea where you could build a HSR station in Houston. The place is pretty congested. A lower speed that would use an existing right of way could be built from downtown to downtown. The TXDOT grant application mentions running trains like this at 150mph. It also gives a strong implication the the while they will study three routes the most likely is the BNSF route which goes through nowhere between the cities.
> 
> Two week ago I sent a message to TXDOT asking some questions about the HSR plan but haven't gotten an answe back.


That actually is no contradiction. If you look at the majority of high speed rail routes across the world, most of them will follow an old (and slow) ROW the first few miles from a downtown station out of the city, then leave the existing railway speeding up on its' own dedicated alignment. Same thing arriving on the other end.

That said at least in the northern end there are solid arguments for a station at an airport as large as DFW. I'm not that familiar with the map, but ideal would be to go to the airport and then let the trains continue (on the conventional tracks) from there into at least Dallas downtown.


----------



## trainviews

saxman said:


> However, this whole airport vs. downtown can easily be solved if the line stopped in DT Dallas and continued on the TRE ROW to make a stop at the airport and onto DT Ft. Worth. I'm no track engineer, but is there anything that stops a 200 mph trainset traveling on conventional rail? As Henry states, I don't think so. Acela does this all along the NEC.


- and it's done in London, Paris, Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Barcelona....

It's actually one of the beauties of HSR that it is basically the same technology as the good old train, just with better engines and, when speeding up, better and less curvy tracks with no grade crossings. So there'e nothing to prevent it going on existing tracks (if electric, catenarys have to be installed) as long as it keeps the speed limit of the track.

This is probably why Maglev or other new technologies have never taken off, even if it is faster and even more energy efficient than rail - you would have to build a new system end to end all the way into the dense city cores, at huge expenses and political problems.


----------



## trainviews

daxomni said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> 
> Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think UA's view of the earning potential for regional flights is going to be the primary decision making point for the airline lobbying groups that will actually be fighting this war. Instead I think we need to look at the bigger picture. In places like Europe and Japan short haul flying has been successfully challenged by HSR for decades. Multiple flag carriers have had to merge or fold. Others have had scale back short haul operations and focus on long-haul intercontinental flights as the primary source of revenue. In the case of more recent converts like Taiwan, domestic flights have been decimated by modern HSR. Even Amtrak's half-speed HSR has managed to successfully challenge the North Eastern air shuttles in the world's largest domestic airline market. If HSR takes off nationwide then domestic flights stand to suffer substantial losses in key markets over time. This is not something that several of the largest airlines on Earth are going to just sit back and watch happen. They and other industry groups that stand to lose profits and revenue are the very folks who have been giving the anti-rail politicians their marching orders when they suddenly started challenging resurgent HSR projects as a primary platform position in the last year or so.
Click to expand...

You have to look at the diversity of the domestic american airline market. Yes, rail can very well kill off shorter routes like Houston-Dallas or Chicago-St. Louis, but for like Dallas-New York - forget it, even with the best of train connections. America is simply too big - actually even Europe is. You don't have any detectable share of the market going by train London-Madrid even though there now is HSR all the way. Speaking in terms of transport, the days of cross-continental train travel are over!

Generally the experience in Europe is that train runs under 3 hours gobbles up the market (this is about what you have NYP-WAS today, and you would have BOS-WAS with true HSR), and runs up to about twice that long have significant ridership.

The interesting part though is that enhanced rail lines, HSR or otherwise, with good connections to major airports, have actually ended up strengthening the major hubs (and their airlines) by expanding their caption area greatly and is probably boosting air traffic over all - just on longer routes. Amsterdam/Schipol is a clear example, the row over whether the coming British high speed rail line to the north should connect to Heathrow, another.

And don't tell me that Southwest and other american airlines can't see that pattern either. If they were sensible their lobbying would be about getting the line to connect directly to DFW, and they would probably get an even larger share of the passengers flying out of Houston to do it via DFW, than they have today with their feeder route...


----------



## jis

saxman said:


> Don't get me wrong. Trust me when I say I want those regional flights to be around! I tend to depend on them right now.


Hey, I am not suggesting that your job disappear. All that I saying is that the traditional regional flights are not the huge profit centers for the airlines. Then again many traditional mainline corridors have essentially been converted to regional corridors too, and naturally what was marginal as a main line corridor in those cases are doing better as regional corridors. There are many regional routes that make a lot of economic sense for the airlines as part of the overall system. Heck - even corridors like Newark St. louis or Newark - Minneapolis as far as Continental is concerned, appear to be Regional corridors, routes that traditionally were main line routes.

Continental has also applied the same principle on international routes using 757s to rightsize certain underperforming routes and then opening up a plethora of new routes to secondary cities and being able to run them quite profitably. Apparently the flexibility to charge somewhat higher fares to get you much closer to actually where you want to go is something that they have accidentally stumbled upon, and now everyone is trying to copy the MO.



> I'm wondering...do those regional flights make money? I know there are some routes (international ones in particular) that show a profit, but do the regional flights manage to break even, or do the airlines eat losses there to "fund" the main routes?
> 
> 
> 
> Yes and no. Many regional flights DO make money. Of course things get complicated when you consider when most regional flight connect to other flights, but there are still several routes the mainly serve O&D passengers. One expample is that Delta recently built up direct flights from Raleigh-Durham. Using mostly 50 seat jets, they started flights to St. Louis, Orlando, Tampa, Columbus, Indy, and Hartford; all non-Delta hubs. Other short flights I can think of include Detroit to Saginaw and Detroit to Kalamazoo. Delta has 7 flights a day between these really short city pairs; a driving (or train time) of just 2 hours or so.
> 
> With that said though, many smaller regional jets are going to go away, especially the older 50 seaters. The cost of operating a 50 seater vs. a 65 or 70 seater is almost a wash.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely correct. The regional battleground will be based on around 100 seaters.

As far as making money goes, while there are variations from route to route, and some routes are marginally profitable and others not, this is also true of main line, not just the regionals. Airline ops have been struggling to match equipment gauge on a route with demand to try to maximize the number of routes that become profitable. A route by route analysis though suffers from the same pitfalls that an equivalent analysis at Amtrak suffers from, which is, how do you allocate costs and revenues to each segment fairly.

On the whole barring a few exceptions, the US airlines that have both domestic and international service tend to find that the international routes are the source of most of their profits, because they have huge flexibility in charging huge fares for the front end of the plane on international routes, whereas on domestic routes more than half the front of the plane is typically occupied by complementary upgrades.


----------



## Devil's Advocate

trainviews said:


> You have to look at the diversity of the domestic american airline market. Yes, rail can very well kill off shorter routes like Houston-Dallas or Chicago-St. Louis, but for like Dallas-New York - forget it, even with the best of train connections.


I don't think a route that long will kill off all airline traffic. But, I don't see why overnight trips cannot be won over. Many of us already fly into a city on a mid-range flight and then spend a night in a hotel before we do much of anything else. An overnight journey would on a train should be able to compete with that sort of experience. If America is simply too big for long distance passenger rail to be workable then how do you explain Russia?



trainviews said:


> You don't have any detectable share of the market going by train London-Madrid even though there now is HSR all the way. Speaking in terms of transport, the days of cross-continental train travel are over!


How long has London-Madrid been bookable as a single-ticket HSR ride?



trainviews said:


> The interesting part though is that enhanced rail lines, HSR or otherwise, with good connections to major airports, have actually ended up strengthening the major hubs (and their airlines) by expanding their caption area greatly and is probably boosting air traffic over all - just on longer routes. Amsterdam/Schipol is a clear example, the row over whether the coming British high speed rail line to the north should connect to Heathrow, another.


I'm not sure I follow you on this. In the case of Amsterdam much of their volume is not due to O&D but to their enormous level of connecting traffic, most of whom presumably never reach or even consider any of their ground transportation options. As for Heathrow, it's primarily an example of bad design and poor management combined into the industrialized world's most expensive and dysfunctional airport. Adding new HSR links to Heathrow won't do anything to strengthen an airport that has been running into air-side capacity restrictions for many years now. Without Heathrow's bugled design and extremely inefficient operational restrictions there would probably be no A380 and many fewer 747's.



trainviews said:


> And don't tell me that Southwest and other american airlines can't see that pattern either. If they were sensible their lobbying would be about getting the line to connect directly to DFW, and they would probably get an even larger share of the passengers flying out of Houston to do it via DFW, than they have today with their feeder route.


Why on earth would Southwest want to promote any new infrastructure for DFW? That makes absolutely no sense to me.


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## jis

daxomni said:


> trainviews said:
> 
> 
> 
> You have to look at the diversity of the domestic american airline market. Yes, rail can very well kill off shorter routes like Houston-Dallas or Chicago-St. Louis, but for like Dallas-New York - forget it, even with the best of train connections.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think a route that long will kill off all airline traffic. But, I don't see why overnight trips cannot be won over. Many of us already fly into a city on a mid-range flight and then spend a night in a hotel before we do much of anything else. An overnight journey would on a train should be able to compete with that sort of experience. If America is simply too big for long distance passenger rail to be workable then how do you explain Russia?
Click to expand...

How often have you tried to take a domestic flight in Russia?  So you explain Russia the same way you explain India - relative costs and perceived convenience/inconvenience 

Personally, when I have an important meeting the following day I will always prefer a 2/3 hour evening flight or train ride followed by a night in a hotel rather than getting tossed around in a moving bedroom. But that's just me, and I am actually a railfan and also an air-fan BTW. So at least for me, an overnight train journey will fail to compete, provided reasonable evening air service is available between the points that I need to travel between.

OTOH, on a leisure trip I would be more likely to take the train.


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## Anderson

Russia is an odd case in that, as strange as it may sound, there simply isn't the volume there to make "good" air service in a lot of areas worthwhile (both in terms of plane quality and in terms of service regularity). By contrast, there are rail lines that've always had service in a lot of those areas. Mind you, a lot of the routes out in rural Russia would be old-style multi-stop airline flights (look in the rail guides from the 50s...you've got flights that go from city to city with four stops on the same plane)...so displacing trains with planes never really happened because it never made (and really still doesn't make) sense, much like you don't have any displacement in parts of Canada along those routes.

As to timing...I think air travel has become sufficiently obnoxious and trouble-prone that you can probably nudge the time people are willing to take on a train upwards a bit over that three-hour barrier. Not _too_ much, but the fact that Amtrak is up close to 50% of the rail-air market BOS-NYP should say something. In that particular case, I think we're going to be looking at capacity constraints on some of the commuter rail-dominated lines holding market share down more than demand. On the other hand, BOS-WAS is its own kettle of fish...and there, I'm dubious about dropping $100 billion on a new alignment to shave trip time down further.

Finally, a nit to pick: Southwest is not going to want to a link to DFW, as they operate out of Love Field. If anything, a direct Dallas link will face tooth-and-nail resistance from Southwest.


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## GlobalistPotato

Anderson said:


> Finally, a nit to pick: Southwest is not going to want to a link to DFW, as they operate out of Love Field. If anything, a direct Dallas link will face tooth-and-nail resistance from Southwest.


So, what, have the HSR line go from Dallas Union Station via the Green Line's alignment to serve Love Field, then take the Orange Line's alignment to serve DFW?

Sure, except that isn't a high speed alignment, even if you build new tracks.

For Love Field, the best option for HSR-to-Plane would be extending an automatic people mover to the Green Line's station, followed by a direct train ride to Union Station?

And for DFW, extend Skylink to the Centerport TRE station, then have every other HSR train between FTW and DAL stop there to serve passengers?


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## Anderson

GlobalistPotato said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> 
> Finally, a nit to pick: Southwest is not going to want to a link to DFW, as they operate out of Love Field. If anything, a direct Dallas link will face tooth-and-nail resistance from Southwest.
> 
> 
> 
> So, what, have the HSR line go from Dallas Union Station via the Green Line's alignment to serve Love Field, then take the Orange Line's alignment to serve DFW?
> 
> Sure, except that isn't a high speed alignment, even if you build new tracks.
> 
> For Love Field, the best option for HSR-to-Plane would be extending an automatic people mover to the Green Line's station, followed by a direct train ride to Union Station?
> 
> And for DFW, extend Skylink to the Centerport TRE station, then have every other HSR train between FTW and DAL stop there to serve passengers?
Click to expand...

Well, you're not going to have much of a high speed alignment within the city itself almost no matter what: Getting a train up to anything over about 100 MPH on that alignment would be a waste of fuel. Running a non-stop express at up to 79-89 MPH through town (whether the governing cap ends up being the FRA speed limit or Class 5 trackage, and depending on what's available to work with) makes a lot more sense; get it up to HSR standards out of town, but the sort of corridor you'd have to cut in town would become prohibitive. Not that it _can't_ be a _part_ of the HSR line...just that you're looking at more of a NWK-NYP type setup (or at _most_ something on par with Alexandria-Manasass) where your acceleration distance becomes a significant part of your trip distance (particularly once you go over 100 MPH).


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## George Harris

From what I have heard of the internal airline service in Russia, they are toward the bottom of the heap in safety, world wide, That is to get on a plane there has got to be some real desperation to get there fast to the point of risking your life to do it.


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## saxman

There is a survey going on the Dallas Business Journal's website asking whether or not people would take high speed rail between Dallas and Houston.

As of now there are over 600 votes, and 74% have voted yes. It's probably not scientific but at least gives you the idea that if quality rail transportation is available, people WILL ride it.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/poll/index.html?poll_id=53191&ana=e_du_pub


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## Anderson

Good point...of course, I'm also wondering if people are thinking "150 MPH Acela", "220 Next-Gen", or something else. Still...it's a shame we can't set things up to gut the internal airline markets in Texas like we've done with them in parts of the NEC.


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