ALL ABOARD?
Virgin guides talk of high-speed trains between Houston, Austin, and San Antonio
This article originally appeared on CultureMap and was written by John Egan.
You've likely heard of the proposed high-speed "bullet" train that would connect Houston and Dallas, as well as the proposed transportation-in-a-tube concept that would link Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Laredo.
Now, another possible alternative to planes, Amtrak trains, and automobiles has chugged into the picture.
Virgin Trains USA, a transportation startup that plans to trade its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange, is exploring two high-speed routes in Texas — one tying together Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, and the other between Houston and Dallas. All four of those cities are plagued by ever-increasing traffic tie-ups.
There's no word yet on when these routes might take shape. At this point, they're merely ideas, and ahead of the company going public, officials at Virgin Trains are staying mum.
In all, Virgin Trains has outlined seven potential routes in the U.S. beyond what it already has on the drawing board.
"Our goal is to build railroad systems in North America that connect major metropolitan areas with significant traffic and congestion," the company says in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Virgin Trains aims to tie together heavily populated cities separated by 200- to 300-mile distances that are "too long to drive, too short to fly." It wants to run the trains along existing transportation corridors — rail, highway or a combination of the two — "to cost-effectively build our systems, as opposed to developing entirely new corridors at potentially significantly higher costs."
If the Virgin name sounds familiar, it should...
Continue reading on CultureMap to find out about Virgin's other transportation investments.
