December 14, 2023 - TexasMonthly.com, written by Megan Kimble -

The Texas Eagle, an Amtrak passenger train, made its final run from Dallas to Houston on September 10, 1995. The trip was scheduled to take a little more than six hours, but it dragged on for nine, as signal problems and freight traffic forced delays along the 265-mile route. No one on board, many there to take part in transportation history, seemed to mind: “I’m sorry I never rode it before,” one woman told the Associated Press. But Amtrak was shedding unprofitable lines across the country, and so the service was discontinued.

Now, it seems, the Texas Department of Transportation wants to bring it back. On Friday, the Federal Railroad Administration awarded $2.5 million to fund five studies of up to $500,000 each to explore passenger rail service in Texas, including a TxDOT project to restore a Dallas-Houston route on the same Union Pacific tracks that once carried the Texas Eagle, as well as an Amtrak partnership to resurrect a controversial high-speed rail project that stalled out in 2022.

Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/amtrak-txdot-passenger-train-high-speed-rail/

Photo credit: Texas Rail Advocates