April 14, 2025 - TRA Newswire -

Within a matter of hours, two breaking issues on the effort to bring high-speed rail to Texas.

The next several days may tell us who is in charge of the Texas bullet train project and where it is going. 

Today, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that a Corridor Identification grant of $63.9 million to Amtrak for planning work on the Dallas to Houston high-speed rail project was being terminated. In a statement, Duffy said that that the private sector should be leading the pre-construction work and not Amtrak, a public sector entity. 

While that was being announced, the Chairman of the Texas House Transportation Committee, Tom Craddick, announced that all bills to be heard in the Thursday morning, April 17, session were removed to make way for testimony from Texas Central, the originator of the bullet train effort. This highly unusual move may have been put legislators under pressure to deal with this issue as soon as possible. 

At the April 3rd House Transportation hearing, committee members were not pleased with responses from a Texas Central spokesperson and issued a subpoena for the private firm to appear with company documents at a future date. That date is now Thursday morning at 8:00am. 

In a statement on the high-speed rail planning fund being pulled today, Secretary Duffy said "I am pleased to announce that FRA and Amtrak are in agreement that underwriting this project is a waste of taxpayer funds and a distraction from Amtrak’s core mission of improving its existing subpar services,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “The Texas Central Railway project was proposed as a private venture. If the private sector believes this project is feasible, they should carry the pre-construction work forward, rather than relying on Amtrak and the American taxpayer to bail them out. My department will continue to look for every opportunity to save federal dollars and prioritize efficiencies.” 

"I think we are going to have to wait until Thursday morning to see where both of these developments take us", according to Texas Rail Advocates President Peter LeCody, who was at the Texas Capitol today. "Texas Central spokesperson Andy Jent, who spoke before the transportation hearing earlier this month, said that a Fort Worth investor now holds the financial reins of the high-speed rail project."

The main investor now is John Kleinheinz, a backer of the Texas Central project for quite a while. At the April 3rd hearing, Jent announced that Kleinheinz had bought out Japanese financial interests in the project but would still use their technology in running high-speed trains.

Kleinheinz is President and CEO of Kleinheinz Capital Partners, a company he founded in 1996. He also serves as investment advisor to the Global Undervalued Securities Fund, that managed as much as $4 billion. Last year he was elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees for a five-year term. 

LeCody asked "Is this going to be a seismic shift from first being driven by private efforts, then shifting to Amtrak in the public sector when the project stumbled during the pandemic, and now back to private hands to make this a reality? I hope that Mr. Jent can give us some clarity on this important mega-project that would be a game changer in Texas."  

The U.S. Department of Transportation news release emphasized that "walking away from the Texas Central Railway project at this time will allow Amtrak to focus on necessary improvements to deliver more reliability to its current riders." 

“Connecting Dallas and Houston remains one of the more exciting opportunities for new passenger rail in the United States,” said Federal Railroad Administration Chief Counsel Kyle Fields. “Today’s announcement reflects a recognition by Amtrak and FRA that federalizing the Texas Central Railway proposal is not the best use of taxpayer funding.” 

The statement went on to say "Today’s announcement does not represent the end of FRA’s interest in new rail projects. FRA has an array of programs that can help with the development of new rail corridors, including high-speed rail routes, and will continue to work with stakeholders to develop cost-effective opportunities."

Photo credit: Progressive Railroading