Tuesday, March 11, 2008
SW to NE Rail Line
From a post by the West and Clear guys, I got clued in to the public meetings about to be held for a southwest to northeast commuter rail line in Fort Worth. It's about time. Basically the line goes from my house to downtown to the airport. How cool is that. So instead of asking my wife to drive me 35 miles to the airport, I can ask her to drive me one block to the station...easily done in PJ's and comfy slippers in about three minutes. Hell, I could even hoof it on a pretty day. It's pathetic that rail transportation isn't prevalent in Texas. We should have TGV's down the 35 and 45 corridors, but I'm sure we can thank the gas lobby for that. This, to me, is a great first step in the right direction.
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3 comments:
Anyone who has taken a train trip can vouch for how it beats travelling by car or plane. I can talk on my cell phone, plug my laptop in to regular 110v outlet, walk around whenever I feel like - I love it! But, the schedules and punctuality of Amtrak suck. I've travelled by train in Mexico, Europe, the East coast and between Austin & D/FW and the Amtrak performance is comical compared to anywhere in Europe (Mexico seems to be somewhere in between, but I've got fewer data points there).
I've read that some of the problems with Amtrak are due to them sharing overburdened track with freight companies. Although passenger trains are supposed to get priority, the freight companies run traffic control, so it doesn't seem to play out that way. Until there is fast, reliable service domestically, train travel will unfortunately continue to be a novelty for longer haul trips.
I'll defer to my more knowledgeable peers on passenger rail that will probably encounter your comment, but this won't be Amtrak. It will be TRE.
I don't know if that changes anything w/r/t punctuality, but I've heard pretty good things. We have this whole Tower 55 cluster-f in the middle of town which seems to be the epicenter of all N-S and E-W rail traffic in the world.
I'm sure one of the guys can provide more info... Tell your wife I said hello. She still the workout queen?
We've got commuter rail up here in Seattle that shares the tracks with BNSF - the freight definitely takes priority. But it is better than nothing.
They are also building dedicated light rail in stages, set to open in a couple of years.
Having lived in NY Metro, Atlanta, and the Bay Area where the dedicated light-rail train/service is all good to great, I know the benefits.
$4/gallon has quieted some of the naysayers up here...
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