An Amtrak train in Dallas, Texas, bound for Houston … eventually.
Photographer: Benton Graham
Where Train Dreams Meet Reality in Texas
Dallas and Houston are 250 miles apart. But if you want to take a train between them, prepare for a 23-hour odyssey that says a lot about where US passenger rail is heading.
Ethan Oliver is a 22-year old from Pottsboro, a Texas town of fewer than 3,000 near the Oklahoma border. The nearest Amtrak station is a 90-minute drive away, in Dallas. That didn’t stop him and four friends from buying train tickets for a ride to San Antonio aboard the Texas Eagle, one of the state’s three surviving rail routes. He’d only been on a train once before, but it made a big impression, and wanted to show his friends the wonders of intercity passenger rail.
“You look at places like Japan, China, whatever, they have their high-speed rail, and then Europe, it’s all interconnected,” Oliver said. “But like, if you want to do this, it’s a 10-hour trip.”