In Texas Supreme Court case, state argues bullet train developer can't use eminent domain
Last edited Sun Dec 26, 2021, 03:14 PM - Edit history (1)
The Texas attorney general’s office has put its weight behind a landowner’s case against the companies developing a controversial Dallas-Houston bullet train, arguing they can’t force people to sell parcels needed for the high-speed rail project.
Weighing in on the matter at the invitation of the Texas Supreme Court, the attorney general’s office offered the latest twist in the nearly decade-long fight over a 240-mile line that would connect Dallas and Houston. While the project has picked up support from leaders of urban areas, it’s encountered hard resistance from residents of the rural counties on its proposed path.
One of those residents, Leon County landowner James Miles, sued Texas Central after the private company sought permission to survey his 600-acre property in 2015 as part of its efforts to examine the land for the project. Miles asked the courts to declare that the company did not have the right to enter his property because it does not have the eminent domain authority granted to railroad companies.
In a legal brief filed with the Texas Supreme Court on Friday, deputies for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued the high court should reverse that appellate decision and rule in Miles’ favor because the companies fall short of the Texas Constitution’s definition of a rail company.
“The [companies] may only make preliminary examinations and surveys of private landowners’ properties for the purpose of constructing and operating a bullet train if they are either railroad companies or interurban electric railway companies,” the state wrote in its brief. “In the State’s view, the [companies] are neither.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-supreme-court-case-state-130030572.html
Property taken to build vanity walls is okay but don't build anything that helps people use less oil.
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I rode it on a round trip from Houston to Chicago on a business trip. Its consist included 2 coach cars and a café car (no sleepers). It left Houston about 8 or 9 am and arrived in Dallas in time to meet up with the Texas Eagle in the afternoon. One of the coach cars was removed from the Houston train and connected to the Eagle, with sleeper passengers then allowed to go to their sleeper cars. Another coach car was removed from the Eagle and connected to the Houston train for the journey back to Houston later in the evening. If I remember correctly, it also stopped in Corsicana and Bryan-College Station, and arrived back in Houston about 9 or 10 pm. Of course, it was cut when the Repub congress in the latter 1990's was so concerned about deficits and tried to starve Amtrak. Thanks, Newt! 
So now there is a shuttle bus that takes Houston passengers southward from Longview, and they don't get to go through Dallas.
Trivia: The Longview station has two separate waiting rooms with separate restrooms, currently used for northbound and southbound passengers. In bygone days when the station was built, the two different accommodations were to keep the races separate. Jim Crow, doncha know.
