January 22, 2025 - TRA Newswire -

The Federal Railroad Administration's evaluation of potential new daily long-distance intercity passenger routes, showed that a Houston to East Coast service had the highest preliminary ranking of 15 new routes that were studied. The Amtrak Daily Long Distance Service Study was presented to Congress this month for its review and future implementation. 

This marks the first time that a comprehensive report to expand the national passenger rail network service had been completed by a federal agency since freight railroads spun off trains to Amtrak in 1971.  

The FRA's vision of future routes also ranked a Dallas to New York route as the third most promising. That route, along with others in the study, would serve a number of towns and cities that are now either underserved by other transportation modes or are in an intercity transportation desert with no surface connection to other regions except by motor vehicle. 

7 of the 15 proposed daily trains would originate in Texas, which speaks to the economic growth of the Lone Star state, but also to the current lack of passenger rail service statewide as well. 

"If you look at all the potential routes that originate in Texas, you see a kind of spider web that radiates from the Dallas-Fort Worth area," said Texas Rail Advocates President Peter LeCody. "This shows you the potential of North Texas, and Fort Worth in particular, of becoming a major passenger rail hub if these routes can be implemented." 

The daily long-distance study ranked the potential routes on a 15 point system. Houston to New York received 14 points; a Dallas-New York route received 10 points; Denver to Houston route ranked as a 9; DFW-Atlanta and DFW-Miami ranked 8 as well as San Antonio-Minneapolis; while El Paso to Billings Montana received a score of 6. 

The Infrastructure bill passed in 2021 directed the FRA to conduct the study, specifically looking at routes that were in service as of April 1971 but were subsequently discontinued. Potential new routes were considered if it would advance the economic and social well-being of rural areas, provide connectivity to the current national long-distance network and have public support for restoring rail service. 

There were 24 regional working group meetings with stakeholders in 21 cities nationwide and the FRA received more than 50,000 stakeholder and public comments. The public response indicated overwhelming support for long-distance services or for passenger rail in general. Texas Rail Advocates participated in the working group meetings in Jackson, Mississippi, New Orleans, Kansas City and Dallas and offered input for route preferences. 

The proposed routes would serve 34 states and give passenger train service to some 39 million citizens that do not currently have access. The selected routes would require additional review and resources to move from the vision to the planning and implementation stages. 

The study also recommended increasing service on the tri-weekly Sunset Limited, which serves cities and towns along the I-10 corridor in Texas and adjacent states to a daily train.  This would help benefit towns like Alpine, Del Rio in West Texas, which now have no commercial air service and infrequent intercity bus connections. 

"This report is exciting, bold and potentially transformational," according to DC-based Rail Passengers Association President Jim Mathews. "We think FRA's study is a great start, despite gaps in some of the analysis and recommendations. We need to do everything we can to ensure that Congress embraces its conclusions and sets the stage for multi-year commitments to growth."

"We need more short-term, practical route investments to show how it can be done quickly and well,” Mathews added. “That means doing a few routes now where it can make sense."