Week 10: Final Touches

Hello everyone and welcome back! Here’s a quick recap of what I worked on last week:

Last week, I explained the economic model behind the project, explaining the dual tier Public-Private partnership where the infrastructure developer supplements his income by developing real estate surrounding the HSR stations. I also explained the origins of this model from Japan and Hong Kong, where the Hong Kong MTR gets 40% of its income from real estate development.

Week 10 Progress:

This week, I put the final touches on my project by sorting out potential depot locations, identifying the optimal track gauge and train stock, and discussing potential market player operators.

Depot Locations: 

When it comes to the placement of depot locations, the Spanish approach to HSR depots is by usually placing them on the outskirts of the cities that are the end destinations of the routes. This placement of the depot is strategic, as the locations have lower real estate acquisition costs while still having room for growth for the depot. 

Additionally, the Spanish have maintenance centers also located between the end destinations, providing additional service capacity to trains if needed. As a result, my suggested design includes three peripheral depots – Houston, San Antonio, and Waco-Dallas – as well as a central depot in Temple. In San Antonio, the design takes advantage of a freight yard that will be unused due to the repurposing of the current UP Del Rio freight track to enter San Antonio. As a result, significant real estate acquisition is not needed since the freight yard is included in the purchase of the UP Del Rio trackage. To see the map of the potential depots and stations, click here.

Track Gauge and High Speed Train Stock: 

In Spain, the HSR runs on Iberian Gauge (1,668 mm), the most common railroad gauge on the Iberian peninsula. This allows for easy lower speed – high speed rail interoperability and allows the Infrastructure developer/government to save money by not changing existing rail to a different gauge. Since lower speed rail in the United States runs on the standard gauge of 1,435 mm, the suggested Texas HSR gauge is 1,435 mm. 

Given that Standard Gauge trains with HSR capabilities are already manufactured in the United States, the Acela Avline (Amtrak) and Brightline Siemens American Pioneer 220s are the suggested trains to be used in HSR.

Potential Market Players:

While likely new operators will be formed to compete in the HSR market, there are two current operators that can be competitive in the market:

Brightline: With significant experience operating private higher-speed rail in the United States, Brightline can pose to be a very strong competitor in the Texas HSR network. With existing trains that can reach 125 mph(200 kmh) and Siemens American Pioneer trains on order that can reach 200 mph(321 kmh), Brightline’s existing HSR infrastructure and experiences primes the company to be a very competitive market player in the earliest years of the Texas HSR operation.

Amtrak: Since Amtrak Acela trains have the capacity to operate high speed rail at 150 mph (241 kmh) and Texas HSR is a very competitive route in terms of potential market share generation percentage, Amtrak has the ability to generate profits that can offset its net loss train routes elsewhere.

With these three last factors now being accounted for, I can officially say that my project is complete. I have had a lot of fun completing this project, and I want to thank my in school advisor Mr. Hamzawsky and my out of school advisor Mr. Yakovenko for providing me with the tools and support to make this project a success! I knew coming in that my project was very ambitious, given that I had to limit my research to the first five weeks and the actual proposal to the last five weeks, but I am very happy that I was able to achieve the ambitious goals I set out for myself. Please look out for my final concluding post next week and thank you for reading!