An international investment group plans to put up $10 billion to build a 220-mph bullet train connecting Dallas and Houston, according to the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The investors, led by Central Japan Railway Co., say they will not seek any state or federal funds to operate the high-speed rail line, which could be running by 2020, the Star-Telegram reported Wednesday.
Instead, the group plans to recover its investment through rider fares, which would be competitive with the cost of air travel between the two cities.
“It is a highly capital-intensive project, but we believe it is commercially viable,” said former Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, one of several Texans in the group and president of Texas Central Railway, a Japanese-U.S. partnership.
The Dallas-to-Houston, high-speed line would be the first in the United States capable of the triple-digit speeds that trains in Europe and Asia reach.
Amtrak’s Acela, the fastest passenger train in the United States, reaches a maximum speed of 68 mph on its route between New York City and Washington, D.C.
The Texas partnership has started looking at potential routes connecting the two cities, which are about 250 miles apart, Eckles said.
“We’re in the process of doing the route studies, the environmental work, pooling the engineering work to determine the best route between Houston and Dallas,” he said.
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