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I agree with your sentiments overall, so don't take my "it's not all gloom and doom" comment as a disagreement... But there are people out there trying! The pro

by chao- 7y ago

I agree with your sentiments overall, so don't take my "it's not all gloom and doom" comment as a disagreement... But there are people out there trying! The project from Texas Central Railways is looking like a sooner bet than California's line, for a number of reasons. An example of a reason is lower price, stemming from geography. The route doesn't require building tunnels through mountains and the like. Although even then there are some disappointing Catch-22 processes at work. A State Senator is using the existence of a particular court case to try and delay/prevent funding, and the plaintiffs of a court case using the Senator's opposition (which cites their case) as an argument in favor of their case. Nonetheless, I'm optimistic on the Dallas to Houston high speed rail. In my dreams, I see that project's completion as giving California a dose of motivation, so as not to be second fiddle to Texas.

samtimalsina 7y ago
I did not know about this project at all. I live in North Dallas, and this is absolutely fabulous news.
Boondox543 7y ago
I travel from Dallas to Houston every week for work and have been following this closely. Often after a run of crummy trips by air due to delays and other common air travel issues I take an executive charter bus just to take a break. All the while dreaming of what it would be like transiting via maglev at 1kmph
- mcny 7y ago
  > 1kmph Did you mean a thousand miles per hour? Dallas to Houston is under 300 miles so a thousand miles per hour would make the commute about eighteen minutes? But then, 1k miles per hour is 447.04 meters per second while speed of sound is about 343 meters per second so I don't know if that technology yet exists... At a thousand kilometers per hour, even including about fifteen minutes of speeding up and slowing down time, a train from Dallas to Houston shouldn't take more than an hour. It would be awesome. Speaking of dreaming, Google says Miami to Seattle is about 48 h (3,303.3 mi) driving via I-90 W. Lets round it up to 6000 kilometers to avoid sharp turns. A non-stop train at 1000 kmph would be a six hour train ride, down from a forty eight hour drive. Imagine a train on this route, full of quiet cars on this route.
- chao- 7y ago
  Vonlane by chance? If so, that company is great. I cannot recommend them enough to people. There was a rocky bit in 2016 for them and I am so glad they survived and are growing their routes and times.
  - Boondox543 7y ago
    Yup, they're quite awesome - and seem to be on a nice growth trajectory as of late.
- ip26 7y ago
  I like your units. Let's see, and a mile is about 5.5 kiloyards?
Rapzid 7y ago
Yeah, I've been hearing about that for 10 years. -Me 8 years ago Also the new route is a joke. The high speed rail was originally supposed to run from Dallas to San Antonio, and Austin to Houston.
- chao- 7y ago
  >Yeah, I've been hearing about that for 10 years. You weren't paying attention then ;) because you could have been hearing about it as far back as the 80's, when Southwest first lobbied it to death (the twice-an-hour-takeoff Houston-Dallas route was their most profitable). I would love to be corrected on this by someone who was in State gov't at that time, but this is my understanding. >The high speed rail was originally supposed to run from Dallas to San Antonio, and Austin to Houston. When it was proposed to be federally-funded, yes. From what I recall it was a US-French collaboration that was going to fulfill that one? Unfortunately the politics at the time led to the state gov't to not seek any of the $8BB (iirc) the Obama administration was trying to give out to kick-start nationwide HSR. You can thank Rick Perry & Co. for that. Now it is a (somewhat) different private group, and if you are posting on Hacker News, I expect you can appreciate how much harder it is to start out with a network connecting 4 cities, than a network connecting 2 cities, when you've not got federal backing. I too would love the "Texas T" network of routes as well, but that didn't happen. Again, you can thank the State administration of a decade ago for turning down the opportunity of federal assistance to build a transit network worthy of Texas. You say it is "a joke", but it is going to take real work to build, provide real jobs, and deliver real value to people who ride it. Are you so cynical that you would you rather not have it at all, and have nothing to look to, to improve on later? If the route is successful, surely it would come to Austin and San Antonio next? What is the advantage, in your mind, of adopting an all-or-nothing framing?
  - croh 7y ago
    From last few years, we are trying. Now look, I appreciate efforts to build such thing in democratic country. but honestly this can't be an excuse as someone is doing better job than us.

by chao- 7y ago

samtimalsina 7y ago

I did not know about this project at all. I live in North Dallas, and this is absolutely fabulous news.

Boondox543 7y ago

I travel from Dallas to Houston every week for work and have been following this closely. Often after a run of crummy trips by air due to delays and other common air travel issues I take an executive charter bus just to take a break. All the while dreaming of what it would be like transiting via maglev at 1kmph

mcny 7y ago
> 1kmph Did you mean a thousand miles per hour? Dallas to Houston is under 300 miles so a thousand miles per hour would make the commute about eighteen minutes? But then, 1k miles per hour is 447.04 meters per second while speed of sound is about 343 meters per second so I don't know if that technology yet exists... At a thousand kilometers per hour, even including about fifteen minutes of speeding up and slowing down time, a train from Dallas to Houston shouldn't take more than an hour. It would be awesome. Speaking of dreaming, Google says Miami to Seattle is about 48 h (3,303.3 mi) driving via I-90 W. Lets round it up to 6000 kilometers to avoid sharp turns. A non-stop train at 1000 kmph would be a six hour train ride, down from a forty eight hour drive. Imagine a train on this route, full of quiet cars on this route.
chao- 7y ago
Vonlane by chance? If so, that company is great. I cannot recommend them enough to people. There was a rocky bit in 2016 for them and I am so glad they survived and are growing their routes and times.
- Boondox543 7y ago
  Yup, they're quite awesome - and seem to be on a nice growth trajectory as of late.
ip26 7y ago
I like your units. Let's see, and a mile is about 5.5 kiloyards?

Rapzid 7y ago

Yeah, I've been hearing about that for 10 years. -Me 8 years ago Also the new route is a joke. The high speed rail was originally supposed to run from Dallas to San Antonio, and Austin to Houston.

chao- 7y ago
>Yeah, I've been hearing about that for 10 years. You weren't paying attention then ;) because you could have been hearing about it as far back as the 80's, when Southwest first lobbied it to death (the twice-an-hour-takeoff Houston-Dallas route was their most profitable). I would love to be corrected on this by someone who was in State gov't at that time, but this is my understanding. >The high speed rail was originally supposed to run from Dallas to San Antonio, and Austin to Houston. When it was proposed to be federally-funded, yes. From what I recall it was a US-French collaboration that was going to fulfill that one? Unfortunately the politics at the time led to the state gov't to not seek any of the $8BB (iirc) the Obama administration was trying to give out to kick-start nationwide HSR. You can thank Rick Perry & Co. for that. Now it is a (somewhat) different private group, and if you are posting on Hacker News, I expect you can appreciate how much harder it is to start out with a network connecting 4 cities, than a network connecting 2 cities, when you've not got federal backing. I too would love the "Texas T" network of routes as well, but that didn't happen. Again, you can thank the State administration of a decade ago for turning down the opportunity of federal assistance to build a transit network worthy of Texas. You say it is "a joke", but it is going to take real work to build, provide real jobs, and deliver real value to people who ride it. Are you so cynical that you would you rather not have it at all, and have nothing to look to, to improve on later? If the route is successful, surely it would come to Austin and San Antonio next? What is the advantage, in your mind, of adopting an all-or-nothing framing?
- croh 7y ago
  From last few years, we are trying. Now look, I appreciate efforts to build such thing in democratic country. but honestly this can't be an excuse as someone is doing better job than us.