I live in Houston and I think this is cool. Trains might be over for the US just because of how we built the country around the interstate system (we're the only country who has one) and so trains don't really work well for passengers here.
There are two cool things about this project: First, it's the only new rail proposal I know of that actually goes between two cities people want to travel between. The Houston-Dallas corridor sees millions of drivers a year (Houston has almost 8M population by itself). This won't be a train station in the middle of nowhere like CA has built.
Second, it's an actual high speed train with world class stats, not a second-rate train that we designed from scratch. One problem with American rail has always been NIH syndrome. We've been averse to using foreign-made locomotives or hiring someone who knows what they're doing (like SNCF) from another country. The investors in the Texas project insisted that it use Japanese hardware. Of course, the investors' being Japanese had a lot to do with it, but the net effect is that this project doesn't have to figure out the train part of the equation and we'll get a much better train than Brightline or other recent attempts in the US.
On the downside, the Houston station is in a strange place so actually taking the train requires going somewhat out of the way, but the trade-off of not having to drive (Highway 45 is famous for terrible accidents daily and shootings quite regularly) could make this one a winner.
BTW, Amtrak is 100% to blame for what has and hasn't happened to passenger rail in the US as they have a legal monopoly on it. Try as you might, you cannot open a new private rail line and carry people in the US without Amtrak's permission since they own the passenger rights to all rail in the US -- built or unbuilt, used or abandoned!
This is part of the deal they got when Congress created Amtrak in the 70's. (The company's real name is National Passenger Rail Corporation; Amtrak is just a brand.) If you're into this topic, I highly recommend Derailed by James Vranich, the man who convinced Congress to create Amtrak in the first place and now believes it should be dismantled.
There are two cool things about this project: First, it's the only new rail proposal I know of that actually goes between two cities people want to travel between. The Houston-Dallas corridor sees millions of drivers a year (Houston has almost 8M population by itself). This won't be a train station in the middle of nowhere like CA has built.
Second, it's an actual high speed train with world class stats, not a second-rate train that we designed from scratch. One problem with American rail has always been NIH syndrome. We've been averse to using foreign-made locomotives or hiring someone who knows what they're doing (like SNCF) from another country. The investors in the Texas project insisted that it use Japanese hardware. Of course, the investors' being Japanese had a lot to do with it, but the net effect is that this project doesn't have to figure out the train part of the equation and we'll get a much better train than Brightline or other recent attempts in the US.
On the downside, the Houston station is in a strange place so actually taking the train requires going somewhat out of the way, but the trade-off of not having to drive (Highway 45 is famous for terrible accidents daily and shootings quite regularly) could make this one a winner.