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Ofcourse none of this will happen. This just for fun.
I would bring back the line between Phoenix and Yuma.
I would upgrade the line to high speed between Houston and College station/Bryant. Build a new line from CS/Bryant to Round Rock. Then turn the Sunset south to Austin then San Antonio.
Finally I would upgrade the line between NOL and Baton Rouge. Then build a new line direct from Baton Rouge to Lafayette.
Amtrak could run regional trains between Houston and Austin. Regional trains between NOL and Baton Rouge. During midnight hours lease the tracks to freight.
LD trains would be the Sunset LA-ORL via the route above. The Crescent would run 12 hours from the Sunset time NYC-NOL-SAT-Laredo TX via above route.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Double track on east from El Paso to at least Houston. And then triple track Tucson - Picacho and Wellton - Yuma - Los Angeles, add ATC, then you can run 3 to 4 times a day Los Angeles Phoenix Tucson at 110 mph, and a reasonably fast Sunset all the way across, maybe "just" at 90 mph east of Tucson.
At one time the SP did have a branch to Austin off the Dallas - Houston line and ran trains between Houston and Austin. I believe it took off at Hempstead.
gp35 Member # 3971
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If you look at maps aerial, you can still see the rail bed between Hempstead and Giddings. A 50 mile gap seperate Austin and Houston direct.
Also the track linking Austin Amtrak station to the line running to Giddings was removed. Well the section in downtown Austin was removed. So 50 miles and 7 city blocks seperate Houston to Austin. This is why I ran my imagination line to Round Rock.
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