Texas could get a 205-mph bullet train zipping between Houston and Dallas::The proposed electric railway line could travel 240 miles in under 90 minutes for over 6 million passengers per year.

  • ilmagico@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I doubt it … first, it’s electric, and second, you cannot install a lift kit on it.

    • Moonguide@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      But you could add some truck nuts behind every train car and some bull horns on the front.

    • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s electric, but a diesel engine strictly for “rolling coal” at cyclists will also be installed.

    • SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Elon will say he can build a hyper loop and it will be way better. Then he’ll do nothing and sell as many teslas to his still mostly untapped conservative base until they’ve had enough and then he’ll switch back to selling cars to liberals

    • Matt Shatt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Seriously. It comes up every couple of years. Then the residents of Grimes county get all up in arms, put signs all along highway 6, vote against it, and then it dies a silent death.

  • hactar42@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The biggest obstacle, besides politics and oil/gas money, is neither of these cities are non-car friendly. Both cities are so sprawling you end up spending significantly more time using public transportation than driving. That’s even if public transportation goes to the part of the city you need.

    • APassenger@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They’ll each need an intermodal stop. That would be so much easier on passengers than the traditional airport stop and, given projected volume, would be essential.

      DART is pretty alright if you’re near a stop.

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “Could” being the operative word. People have been trying to build this since the 1990s.

  • blueeggsandyam@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I live in Texas and this is unlikely to happen. It was more likely to happen a few years back. I doubt they will build a eletric train between two liberal cities. The only thing that would make it less likely is if you said it was a gay eletric train. Even if they did, Texas cities are sprawled out and require a car. It would only work if you could load your car on the train. It would be useful for students going back and forth to their universities. However, university students are almost as despised as poor people or minorities to most of the voters in Texas.

    • supercriticalcheese@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      Yes exactly that. You can’t start a high speed train and expect for it to work.

      Each train can handle the same amount of passengers as a couple large planes if not more. When they arrive at the destination something is needed for them to reach their destination…

  • weedazz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Not sure if it’s going to happen in Texas, but the Bright line high speed rail between Miami and Orlando is going to be finished by the end of the month hopefully!

    • EpicFailGuy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That shit has been a battle for the best part of two decades … Can’t believe it finally happened

    • hobovision@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      For what it’s worth, Brightline Florida isn’t quite considered high speed by most metrics. It will have a short 125 mph section, which is kinda the minimum design speed to be considered high speed. The state of rail in the US is so bad though that Brightline Florida might actually have a higher average speed than the Acela…

      Brightline West between southern CA and Las Vegas will be designed as a deticated high speed line though.

    • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      This. We’d have a high speed rail going between San Diego and Seattle by now if Mush hadn’t gotten everyone exploring hyperloop (a concept we’ve known to be terrible for over a century now).

  • wosat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m seeing a lot of commenters shitting on Texas here, and while it’s not completely undeserved, I’d like to point out that Texas is 1st in the nation in wind power generation. Texas will implement things – even “Blue” things – if the economics make sense.

    • vanontom@geddit.social
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      1 year ago

      Republicans like Abbott went on Fox News and blamed windmills for the storm outage. The party is very different than they were when these projects started, when economics mattered. Texas politics may still accidentally allow a select few progressive things to happen, but the builders and owners must be extremely “friendly” and perfectly thread the needle. Oil and gas owns this state, including the windmills, probably.

    • SaintWacko@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      They may generate the most wind power, but that’s just because they’re so big. They’re not even in the top 10 if you look at what percentage of their power generation is from wind power

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I tried to find the existing Houston rail station on foot one time. It took an hour. There were few helpful signs and sidewalks only some of the time.