The Routes
Today I’d like to look at the main routes for a Texas High Speed Rail system. The question of where to route a high-speed train in Texas is probably the most widely discussed aspect of the subject. There have been a number of proposals, from the fairly straightforward Texas TGV (following the basic route of the Interstate Highways between the Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston), to the outright asinine Trans-Texas Corridor (with high-speed rail looping 40 and 50 miles outside of the major cities as part of a vast ‘bypass’ network).
There is one plan that has recently been gaining a lot of traction. The “Texas T-Bone” plan, pushed by the Texas High Speed Rail Transportation Corporation, suggests connecting the three points on the triangle by taking a straight shot through the heavily populated I-35 corridor from Dallas to San Antonio, then intersecting it with a “Tee” that would extend from Fort Hood to Houston. See the image below for an appoximate representation.
The T-Bone is designed to shave 250 miles of track off the “triangle” route, and therefore offer the possibility of much cheaper construction. The T-Bone also seeks to connect to Texas A&M by passing through College Station on it’s way from Houston to Temple.
I appreciate the T-Bone idea, and I think it’s a smart alternative to the Interstate Triangle, mainly because there’s more population along the route. However, I see a few major drawbacks to this plan.
First of all, there’s no direct linkage between Houston and the other major cities. Now, if the train is going 200+ miles an hour, it could still be faster to go from Houston to Temple to San Antonio than to drive from Houston to San Antonio. But, psychologically, the idea of going to a train station in Houston, riding to Temple, transferring, and riding to San Antonio sounds overwhelmingly inefficient. The psychological impact matters.
Secondly, any HSR route will be more effective if it can overlap with commuter routes inside the city proper (designed in such a way that the commuter trains don’t slow down the intercity trains, of course). The T-Bone misses certain opportunities to pair with commuter rail, which I’ll discuss in more detail in a moment.
An Alternative Concept
In an attempt to combine the best elements of the “Triangle” and the “T-Bone” into a single system, I’ve come up with an alternate plan. I call it the Mini-Triangle.
The Mini-Triangle (MT) plan results in direct express routes to and from Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. These routes branch in Austin, Waco, and College Station. If a high-speed train averaged a modest 150MPH (including stops), the travel time from Houston to Dallas would be 1:45. This represents about a 20-30 minute savings over the T-Bone if you factor in travel and transfer times. The savings would be about 25-35 minutes going from Houston to San Antonio.
But where this plan offers the most substantial new benefits is in Central Texas. The “Mini Triangle” of Austin, Waco, and College Station holds three of Texas’ largest Universities. If you you count one more station south of Austin (San Marcos) you’ve got four of the state’s largest Universities. Creating direct links between the University of Texas and Texas A&M would be a significant asset to the state by facilitating joint research projects. Adding in a direct, non-stop service from Baylor, UT, and A&M to Houston and the Texas Medical Center would be another tremendous advantage.
The other big benefit is that the branches create a logical concentration of service where it is needed most. For instance, trains leaving San Antonio would alternate between Galveston and Fort Worth as their final destinations. This means there would be twice as much service between North Austin and San Antonio as there was between North Austin and College Station or North Austin and Temple.
Military service from Fort Hood to the Port of Houston would still be quick, with a spur serving the Temple / Killeen / Fort Hood area. The spur could be operated as a regional shuttle on a day-to-day basis, either operating from Killen to Temple, or from Killen to Waco through Temple. If rapid deployment from Fort Hood was required the trains could easily run directly from the Fort to the Port.
Most importantly, the trains would run directly to major hubs on compact, elevated guideways. Therefore the train would not be taking you from a parking lot to a parking lot, but from Downtown Houston to the Capitol, or from the Texas A&M campus to the Strand, or from the American Airlines Center to the Riverwalk.
This basic framework could serve as the central spine, with numerous opportunities for future branches, extensions, and supplementary commuter rail service. The idea is to build a fast, efficient network that gets people to and from the places they want to go in the shortest amount of time.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be zooming in on different segments in these corridors and discussing more specific routes and connections. In the mean time, I’m looking forward to your feedback on the general outline!
Categories: featured, move
Tags: AMT, high-speed, maglev, Mini-Triangle, routes, technology, Texas, Texas High-Speed Rail, transit, transportation
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I completely agree with this alignment. We’ve been talking about this route for a while and presented it to the the Texas Triangle megaregion conference last Friday. People seemed to agree that it made sense. Interestingly, there was almost no interest in the T-bone. But there was some agreement that Bryan/College Station should be a stop on the route. That pretty much says that generally people would support this idea, and a stop in Waco for the same reasons. The Houston-Austin connection is a no-brainer.
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If the train systems do not use the magnetic levitation system then this money spent will only push us as a nation behind other nations that have outpaced us in transportation technology. These trains that are being proposed will come off the tracks and kill many. The maglevs will not as they are secure. Who in their right mind would want a system that cost millions of dollars to build just to see it run off tracks? This idea is cave talk and the only way to get us into the future and stay abreast of other developing countries is to build only a maglev system for our transportation needs. We need a new leader with these ideas in mind and not a leader that continues to spread war and violence on our earth. Let us Americans spend that money on ourselves to promote magnetic propulsion systems and forget this oil and gas stuff which is only blood letting. Look at Japan, China, and a couple more countries that have taken their civilization into a more complacent atmosphere and is exceeding us drastically. Let only high speed maglev trains be used for this new idea of high speed trains. Vote for this only or we will be big time losers.
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And by the way, I don’t hear much analysis of fuel costs for the Houston-Dallas or Houston-San Antonio trips in the T-Bone. This is an example of trying to do the cheapest thing at the beginning, and then paying extra for it over generations.
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David,
Your second point is 100% on target. The “pay less now, pay more later” mindset is baffling to say the least, and we need to steer clear of it if we want to build something effective.
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I’ve had 2 ideas regarding this, one is to have the trains be able to take cars on, this way you could arrive in Dallas, or San Antonio and drive to your destination once in town. This of course may not work with highspeed rail, or it might, I’m not familiar with the options available for the cars of the trains. The other though I’d had was, since there would be a need for an access road of some sort along the tracks, do an autobahn(grade of road, quality of road, lack of speed limit) style road next to the tracks, that is toll only.
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This is a brilliant take on the T-BONE. What kind of frequencies to think would be feasible? Also with the other plans there are stops at the airports, would that be included in your plan as well. I agree with both you and David about the doing things cheap and quick versus reasonably and correctly. You can either pay me now or later but you are going to pay me
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The mini-triangle is the best route that I have seen thus far – it makes sense from almost all angles and should be seriously considered.
As for efficiency and ridership, there needs to be an inner-city mode of public transit available at each high speed rail stop – whether it be a metro with subway cars, a lite rail system, or even a bus system. This makes more sense than trying to load automobiles onto high speed trains. The whole notion behind high speed trains is time efficiency – how long would it take for all of the automobiles to be loaded? how will the added weight of the cars affect the speed of the train? will all stops be able to load cars or just the major nodes? If trains are going to be stopping at stations for 2-5 minutes, I do not feel there is enough time to unload automobiles already on board, load new automobiles, and secure them for transportation.
Along with the city transit, the stations should also be centrally located within the heart of each city. I do not feel that airports need their own stops, but the airports should be directly tied to the city’s public transit that can move people from the airport to the high speed rail station.
I also think that trains departing/arriving every 20 minutes would work well. I understand the spontaneity of jumping in a car in a moment’s notice (even though you still have to invest time to operate a car, ie filling gas tank, oil changes, tires, maintenance, etc), but if you’re able to travel in 1/3 the time then making plans to be at the station near departure time would be well worth it to me – that and the fact that once aboard, you can enjoy your time however you choose rather than battling the busy interstate highway. No stops for gas, food, drinks, or bathroom breaks. No chance of damaging your own personal vehicle (and less maintenance costs of said vehicle). No chance of getting ticketed by law enforcement. No traffic jams!
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Chip,
I think your comments are spot-on. The best answer is for the train station to enter into a partnership with a car-share, or some similar solution for the less urban stops.
As far as the main lines go, it’s not much different from airport travel. You’re going to the central city, so you may not need a car, even in Texas.
If you are headed out to the suburbs after you arrive in your destination city, there’s a good chance you can get on a transfer rail or bus service, and if that’s not an option you can always get picked up by your friends, call a taxi, rent a car, or use some kind of a car share.
So, there are options. Over the long haul the cities that are served by top-quality rail will adjust in order to take advantage of the passengers who need to get from the major hub to their final destination.
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Every time I start from scratch and try to develop a Texas high-speed rail network, this is essentially what I come up with.
One caveat: 150mph average (including stops) is not “modest.” The relative effect of station stops on average speed increases exponentially relative to maximum cruising velocity. Feel free to shoot me an email if you want me to parse the mathematics for you; as a rough guess I’d say your travel time estimates are about 20% too low.
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KHH,
Thanks for the feedback. For what it’s worth, this is a quick back-of-the-envelope figure based on a top speed of 300 MPH and an acceleration rate of .15g. That’s per what AMT has told me are the technical limits of the track and chassis – the cabin design they’re using right now is really not intended to pass 150MPH top speed, and I think for intercity trains a different cabin design would be appropriate anyway.
I’m going to calculate the time in more detail when I write about each corridor.
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Well there’s two numbers in your post.
RE: .15g, engineering limits don’t really matter, since the limits for passenger comfort on commuter/intercity rail are about 2mph per second. If I want to be pressed into the back of my seat, I can fly always fly one of Herb’s 737-300s.
RE: 300mph, well, Shanghai transrapid is currently 267, mostly limited by the length of the guideway – but that’s based on over 30 years of German research. So it’s feasible, but…
…as a cultural thing, I’m really tired of transportation projects that overpromise and underdeliver. I’d be down with giving “American Maglev” a contract to build a commuter line along 288 – sure, let’s have Houston be the showcase for some new technology! – but when it comes to a complex statewide system you need reliable operation and predictable cost, and reliability/predicability is steel wheel on steel rail.
Shinkansen N700, Thalys PBKA, ICE 3/3M all max out at 300km/h, so if I was trying to drum up support for a high speed system I’d run my travel time estimates based on that technology and stipulate that these are the “bare minimum” travel times, and any system will be AT LEAST this fast.
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KHH,
That’s a good point – stipulating minimums and then aiming to deliver as much beyond them as possible, rather than over-promising.
Also, you’re right about reliability and predictability if you’re talking about a government contract. The main concept I’m trying to explore here is what could theoretically happen if this were pulled of primarily in the private sector.
If that were the case, the South Corridor would be the first test track, then continued expansion of the commuter rail systems in Houston (and probably in the other major metros) would follow. Assuming that at each step along the way things were successful, the final stage would be to begin connecting the outer commuter stops between cities to deliver inter-city service.
That’s the angle that makes the most sense to me anyway. That, and it’s an angle that nobody is really talking about – people tend to either focus on how to do local or how to do state/national, I rarely hear people talk about designing the two in tandem. I never hear people talking about opportunities to privatize. So, that’s what I’m trying to develop as a concept for discussion.
As always, thanks for the feedback.
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@ Andrew -
(a) it would be perfectly possible to run direct trains between e.g. San Antonio and Houston via Temple in the T-Bone network. It would be a somewhat inefficient route, but there would be no need for transfers.
(b) the mini-triangle concept looks promising, but you’d need more data to determine if the red line you propose would outperform (in a financial sense) a more direct leg between Houston and half-way in-between San Antonio and Austin. College Station is an important stop, but is it important enough to add such a large detour to the San Antonio-Houston connection?
(c) it might make sense to leverage the existing rail right of way for a regional rail service between Temple and Copperas Cove doubling as a multi-stop feeder service into the HSR backbone.
(d) regional rail might also make more sense for Houston-Galveston. You want to use the limited budget for expensive HSR track to connect the largest population centers as efficiently as possible.
(e1) Forth Worth is a fairly large town in its own right, but it’s so close to Dallas it might make more sense to beef up DART instead of trying to run HSR to a downtown station there.
(e2) However, there would be significant value in having an HSR station at DFW, tied in with the Skylink/terminal link transfer services. That would allow airlines to optimally leverage HSR for onward connections, decongesting DFW for flights to other states and countries. Southwest killed off Texas HSR once, you want them to see a second attempt as a business opportunity, not as a threat.
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No high speed rail system is profitable; even Shinkansen doesn’t pay for the debt service on its construction bonds, and that’s in a country where most commuter/intercity rail turns a profit.
That said, all of the major vendors of high-speed steel wheel on steel rail have procurement and production processes geared towards large government contracts, so it makes sense that a private system might be just as likely to use some other technology. If “dumb track” maglev has a future, it’s probably in such a private-sector context.
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I like the idea of the mini-triangle but think it might be misplaced. I think the line from Houston must run through Bryan and into Temple/Kileen. You are going to have to sell this idea to Congress and if you can tell them that it provides a benefit to military operation and to the soldiers stationed in Ft. Hood then you need a direct route. You can still use the mini-triangle idea, just make it smaller.
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While maglev has faster top speed, the cost issues of putting in switches means that most plans call for a local-only service. A steel wheel HSR system has the advantage that it’s easier to run express trains, yes the locals are slightly slower, but not by much. Those expresses are often only a few minutes slower than the all-local maglev option. And steel wheel keeps getting faster – Bombardier just announced their 234mph Zefiro steel-wheel trains, further eating into maglev’s main selling point: a high top speed. To top it off, passenger comfort rather than trainset capabilities limits acceleration and vertical curve radii (think roller coaster). Maglev might make sense some day, but not for the foreseeable future.
I like this mini-triangle plan, I think it’s a great approach. Hopefully it gets built.
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Also, using the t-bone plan, why must passengers transfer when they arrive in Temple from Houston? If there is a direct train from Houston to SA or Dallas I’m sure the engineers could throw a few curves in before Temple proper and send you South or North without stopping.
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KHH: do you have a link for your claims about the Shinkansen? I haven’t seen any reliable reference for it – on the contrary, the reliable people say that the Tokaido and Sanyo lines paid off their construction bonds and the rest are profitable after depreciation (i.e. they could pay the bonds).
As for travel time, trains don’t have to make all stops. For reference, the newer HSR lines, say those constructed 10-20 years ago, have average speeds of about 150 mph, including stops.
Andrew, A Lynch: there’s a three-way turntable in Temple for direct service. That’s the reason the THSRTC wants to make it the junction of the T-Bone.
Andrew: hopefully, the DFW end of the line will not be DFW Airport, as your map suggests, but a line stopping in downtown Dallas, DFW, and downtown Fort Worth.
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It’s certainly possible to offer direct service that forks in Temple, but you’re still going a lot farther out of the way.
Very large volumes of traffic travel from Houston to Austin and College Station every day, very little flows from Houston to Temple. Likewise a direct link from Austin to College Station and from College Station to Waco are both much more valuable than a direct connection from College Station to Temple.
It’s not that the T-Bone can’t work, it’s that the mini-triangle works better.
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Alon,
The stops would ABSOLUTELY be in Downtown Dallas and Fort Worth.
I see airport connections as secondary considerations in planning the rail lines. If it’s practical to pick up an airport along the way, that’s great, but if not, then that’s ok.
It certainly makes sense for there to be a quality connection to the airport at the regional transit level, but it’s not worth deflecting the HSR main lines dramatically out of their ideal alignment just to connect to an airport.
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Andrew:
One interesting thing about the “Texas Triangle” is that the most logical route to-from downtown Austin passes directly by ABIA. If anything, in a future where Hobby/IAH/DFW have become congested, a Texas Triangle would allow people to grab a cheap flight into Austin and take the train to their final destination – sort of like I presently do with BWI when I want to go to DC or MD.
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KHH: what you’re saying is that the Texas Triangle would allow Texas to leverage ABIA as a relief airport for DFW and IAH. This is the untested California strategy for air-rail connections.
The way it’s worked in Europe is different: in both France and Germany, HSR lines serve the large hub airports, which get more room by eliminating short-haul flight connections. TGV service to Charles de Gaulle means that passengers from Lyon and Lille who travel abroad don’t have to fly from their local airports to CDG first, but instead can take the train; the same is true for ICE service to Frankfurt Airport. The Texas T-Bone concept follows this approach, emphasizing rail connections to DFW and IAH.
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Rail to DFW is a no-brainer, since it lies on a more-or-less direct path between Dallas and Fort Worth.
IAH is a little bit different; ANY and EVERY high speed rail plan, whether T-bone, triangle, or somewhere in between, will send tracks out the 290 corridor, as this is the most direct (and coincidentally least developed) route. Routing it through IAH results in significant construction cost increase, and at least 10-12 minutes in additional travel time (most likely 15).
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Let us not forget the fastest growing regions, the Texas/Mexico border region, they need another line to link San Antonio – Nuevo Laredo – Monterey Mexico! Eventually linking another route to Mc Allen – Brownsville Regions! This will be very important in the future! Texas (gateway) is very close to the largest cities in Mexico. We need to improve our relations with them.
Luis
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Frankly until Mexico cleans up its drug cartels why would we want to create a potential route for drug smuggling by connecting to Mexico or the border regions?
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KHH: are you sure 290 is the only way out of Houston? There’s an existing rail line going up 548 and then veering west in Spring, which is straight enough for HSR until well into greenfield territory, and which runs right next to IAH. HSR would definitely use this line to get to I-45 with a triangle arrangement. With a T-Bone arrangement, it would at least be an option.
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I just drew lines on Google Maps, and it turns out the IAH route is longer than the 290 route by less than a mile. See here.
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Houston to Dallas is the largest traffic flow according to the traffic flow maps I’ve seen, freight and human traffic considered. I would like a system that went from Galveston to Houston to Dallas and north, then from Dallas down 35 to San Antonio and south to Corpus Christi, then a line from Brownsville back along the coast to Galveston, B/Cs could link with a middle route Fort hood to Houston. Then we should consider East Texas and West Texas lines, we should consider the whole state when picking routes because these lines and stations will bring tremendous growth wherever they are put and thats what we want, more growth, the whole state should grow from this.
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I took a map of Texas and I put a black dot at every city that had 50 thousand or more residents and then I put a red dot at every city between 50 thousand and 25 thousand and a picture emerged showing were the state is growing the most, everyone should try this, remember that were ever a station is placed a lot more growth will happen, also it should be noted that Corpus is booming and the Valley is booming, these destinations can’t be over looked, we should look at the whole state when the planning for rail is being done.
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Nice Ideas! I always like to follow discussions on rail, especially high speed rail.
However, I believe what your mini triangle concept fails to address is the issue of initial infrastructure costs. Keeping these investments to a minimum means keeping rail miles (to be constructed) to a minimum. This is what the t-bone seems to do best. Another aspect that needs to be considered is of course right-of-way acquisition, which might be cheaper for a route following the highways, i.e. the (big) triangle.
Operating costs related to miles traveled or fuel costs play in fact a smaller role, as they can be balanced by fast travel speed and a natural advantage in environmental friendliness.
To goal should be to include as many potential riders on the least amount of miles possible, ideally only on one line. California’s plan seems to go in the right direction: http://cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
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What about Houston,SanAntonio, Laredo and McAllen Corpus Christi, Houston
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I think both the Texas T bone and mini triangle are awesome ideas for Texas. How often do you get snarled in traffic that moves at a snail’s pace somewhere between Dallas and Austin on 35? Not to mention the construction jobs it would create for our state.
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In my opinion you’ve got too many stops in the mini triangle plan. The appeal of high speed trains, to me at least, is that it could provide a reasonable alternative to short to mid range flights. While I can appreciate that Waco traffic would want to tag along on the 35 line, I don’t see a tremendous appeal to people in DFW or Austin in losing that much potential travel time to accommodate the extra stops as each stop requires the train to reaccelerate. The same goes for College Station, though maybe to a lessor extent. It seems to me that direct Mag Lev service following the 35 and 45 and 10 interstates complimented by a higher than standard speed steel rail service with some stops, perhaps utilizing your mini triangle, connecting the College Station and Waco to The hub in Austin. A direct Houston to Austin line could also be considered as an alternative to a line along the 10. Suburbs should be served by municipal rail systems. I believe that if the direct lines between the major hubs aren’t considered, the appeal over driving will be considerably lessened. The main benefit that I see selling this system to travellers is as an alternative to short range flights. Including towns like Temple, Killeen, College Station, and Waco seems to disproportionately favor the small towns (which are already more centrally located than the cities anyway) and may prevent the system from gaining the necessary traction where it is most needed, in DFW, Austin, SA and Houston.
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