Summary: Both passenger and freight rails are firmly rooted in Cowtown’s history. Currently, there are a half dozen agents with plans for conventional and high-speed rail travel in Texas; and Fort Worth is in the hub of all of them. From Fort Worth to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Georgia, DC, NYC, Oklahoma, by commuter, long distance, and high-speed bullet rail, Fort Worth leaders support them all.
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Fort Worth poised to be major hub for national rail travel. Will the pieces fall into place? Fort Worth Report article.
Both passenger and freight rails are firmly rooted in Cowtown’s history.
Currently, there are a half dozen agents with plans for conventional and high-speed rail travel in Texas; and Fort Worth is in the hub of all of them. From Fort Worth to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Georgia, DC, NYC, Oklahoma, by commuter, long distance, and high-speed bullet rail, Fort Worth leaders support them all. [1]
"Both passenger and freight rails are firmly rooted in Cowtown’s history, none more famously than the steam locomotive that rumbled into town on July 19, 1876, after townsfolk scrambled to complete the Texas and Pacific Railway line. The get-it-done frenzy came after reports of a panther sleeping in a deserted Fort Worth street stirred indignant townsfolk into action and gave the town its lasting nickname of 'Panther City.'” [2]
Willow Park Sources and Resources
[1] FW-D Railway Index, Willow Park Civics Blog, posted 01 January 2025.
DFW is the epicenter of Federal and State plans for railways.
[2] Fort Worth poised to be major hub for national rail travel. Will the pieces fall into place?, Fort Worth Report, 13 October 2024, Excerpts.
...an unprecedented Biden administration plan designed to pump new life into the nation’s passenger rail system would extend the Flyer all the way to Newton while dramatically escalating Fort Worth’s stature as a major hub for national rail travel.
The initiative constitutes the biggest passenger rail revitalization program since the creation of Amtrak, America’s publicly funded rail system, more than a half-century ago. Funded under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the program would direct $66 billion toward creating, restoring and extending conventional lines while authorizing some of the nation’s first high-speed routes, including at least two in Texas.
“The opportunity that could exist there would be huge for our economy,” Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker told the Fort Worth Report, describing how the expanded national rail network would vastly strengthen the North Texas region’s economic and cultural links with other cities. “With the amount of growth we’re seeing in North Texas, we have to embrace the opportunity of passenger rail.”
A series of planning grants announced in December unleashed fierce efforts to fulfill passenger rail needs in nearly every state while railroad administration officials undertake related efforts to establish new long distance routes from 750 to 2,500 miles. Although the process is still in the early stages, Fort Worth and the surrounding metropolitan area appear destined to figure heavily in the next-generation rail system based on the initial round of studies.
“It’s the first time we’ve been able to look this far forward,” said Peter LeCody, president of Texas Rail Advocates, a Dallas-based nonprofit organization formed nearly 25 years ago to advocate for expanded passenger rail in the nation’s second largest state. He calls it a crucial “first step in a long process” that would require “the cooperation of local, regional and state entities.”
One of the proposals, advanced by the North Central Texas Council of Governments, calls for a 30-mile-long high-speed rail corridor that would run between Fort Worth and Dallas, with a stop in Arlington. It would connect with a longer 240-mile high-speed rail that would be spearheaded by Amtrak between Dallas and Houston.
Another project strongly supported by Parker and her predecessor, former Mayor Betsy Price, would stretch along the Interstate 20 corridor from Fort Worth through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to ultimately link the Fort Worth-Dallas metropolitan region with a “megacity” of the Southeast: Atlanta.
Fort Worth is also central to proposed long-distance routes that have advanced through regional working groups of the Federal Railroad Administration and are expected to be submitted to Congress later this year. At least four of the routes originate or end in Fort Worth-Dallas-Arlington, linking the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area with destinations or points of origin in Miami, New York, San Francisco and Atlanta.
Tarrant leaders support rail expansion, hurdles and all
Rail lines jutting out from Fort Worth-Dallas on one of the federal planning maps are reminiscent of a piece of Fort Worth lore from the 1870s, when newspaper editor B. B. Paddock published — perhaps wishfully — a map on his masthead showing nine railroads entering Fort Worth, prompting critics to derisively label it the “tarantula map.”
Both passenger and freight rails are firmly rooted in Cowtown’s history, none more famously than the steam locomotive that rumbled into town on July 19, 1876, after townsfolk scrambled to complete the Texas and Pacific Railway line. The get-it-done frenzy came after reports of a panther sleeping in a deserted Fort Worth street stirred indignant townsfolk into action and gave the town its lasting nickname of “Panther City.”
Nearly 150 years later, leaders in Fort Worth and cities across the country are planning a 21st century passenger train network that would create or extend conventional routes on existing rails largely used by freight traffic, or develop high-speed rail systems that would require a whole new infrastructure, such as elevated lines.
“I realize these are very complicated projects that take decades to make a reality,” said Parker, “but I firmly believe it’s something we have to invest the time and attention into and, importantly, work together.”
Parker and other Tarrant County leaders signaled strong support for passenger rail, including planned high-speed routes, at an August Fort Worth Report Candid Conversation event on transportation.
In an interview this month, Parker called the proposed high-speed routes linking Fort Worth, Dallas, Arlington and Houston “a game changer” that could “end up, hopefully, taking us all the way into Austin and down into San Antonio.”
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