Dallas City Wire

Approval of an environmental review and safety requirements moves the Texas Central Railroad’s high-speed rail system closer to reality, which in its six years of construction is expected to create more than 17,000 direct jobs and another 20,000 jobs in its supply chain.

The high-speed rail project will create a $10 billion economic impact across the nation through contracts with manufacturers including steel mills, Texas Central Railroad reported on its website.

Direct spending in the project will provide what the organization estimates as $36 billion in its first 25 years with construction, employee payroll and the costs of operation and maintenance of the high-speed rail system.

Review and approval of the mandated environmental review and safety requirements by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) moved the project closer to construction, Texas Central Railroad reported.

“The release of the final RPA and ROD by the Federal Railroad Administration represents years of work by countless individuals, affirming a very thorough and careful federal regulatory process that will make the Texas Central Railroad the first high-speed rail system to be implemented in the United States,” Carlos Aguilar, CEO of Texas Central Railroad, said in the release.

The FRA’s approval of the Record of Decision that included the 10,000-plus-page Final Environmental Impact Statement also set the alignment that the high-speed rail will follow between Dallas and Houston, Texas Central Railroad reported.

Accident-avoidance measures are more stringent that what the FRA requires for conventional U.S. rail operations, the release reported.

Texas Central Railroad plans to replicate the Japanese Tokaido Shinkansen high-speed rail system. Central Japan Railway Co. has transported more than 10 billion passengers in more than 55 years with zero operational passenger fatalities and zero accidents.