It's "nice" of Brains to think about me on Texas' high speed rail, mentioning that the Texas Central Railway has signed a multibillion dollar construction contract, but, as I blogged several weeks ago, per Jim Schutze, the real real estate grifting may not be out in Roans Prairie (though we shouldn't ignore that) but in downtown Dallas. There's also good evidence that there is plenty of good old capitalist lying on ride count estimates. That's not just me that says that, but at the link, a lot of people who have tracked this issue.
Given that TCR has insisted it will be entirely private, and that, re those ride count overcounts, I still say that they're running a bad route, instead of doing what I said from the start, following Texas 6 to have an intermediate stop IN College Station, not some fucking grifting bit of rural real estate, plus another stop in Waco.
Beyond that? That contract signing means nothing, for a couple of big reasons.
One, I see it as an attempt to buffalo either the Texas Lege away from tightening eminent domain law (it gave such tightening semi-serious consideration this year), or else buffalo state courts away from adverse rulings.
Two, such contracts mean nothing. I lived most the previous decade in Dallas' Best Southwest suburbs, just north of Red Oak, which is in turn just north of Waxahachie.
Decades ago, a number of contractors and subcontractors signed contracts to work on this thing called ...
The Superconductor Super Collider.
There's a big ditch north side of Waxahachie today from all that contract work. No massive subatomic particles to be found.
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