FRA technical report reviews corridor alternatives for Texas Central Railway project

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) last week issued a "Corridor Alternatives Analysis Technical Report" for Texas Central Railway's proposed Dallas-to-Houston high-speed rail project.

The document, which is part of the FRA's review of the project’s potential impact on the environment, identifies and evaluates a range of potential corridors, station locations and service types that could become "alternatives" in the environmental impact statement, the report states.

Texas Central Railway has proposed building and operating a private, for-profit passenger rail line between Dallas and Houston using the Japanese N700-I Tokaido Shinkansen high-speed rail technology. The rail system would operate along a 240-mile corridor between the two cities.

The company proposed a rail system that would require a fully sealed corridor with grade-separated crossings and dedicated right-of-way of 76 to 200 feet wide to accommodate a two-track railroad and an access road.

The proposed rail system would also require a "closed" system, meaning that the train must run on dedicated high-speed rail track for passenger-rail service only, and could not travel on existing or planned freight-rail lines, nor share track with other passenger-rail services such as Amtrak, the FRA report states.