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COWCATCHER MAGAZINE

TEXRAIL gets federal approval to start preliminary engineering and design

April 1, 2012 / Updated August 29, 2012

Passenger Rail

Another commuter rail line appears headed for North Texas.

The Federal Transit Administration gave the okay in March to start preliminary engineering and design for TEXRail, a proposed $758 million commuter line along 37 miles of the Cotton Belt corridor stretching from far Southwest Fort Worth to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

TEX Rail would join two other area commuter lines – Trinity Railway Express and Denton A-Train – in the Southwest’s fastest growing passenger rail market.

The FTA notified the Fort Worth Transportation Authority by letter dated March 23 that it had given the go-ahead. The T, however, must secure a federal grant for about half the project’s cost before dirt can move. The North Central Texas Council of Governments is seeking additional public and private funds for the project.

TEX Rail, if approved, could begin service by 2016.

Current Issue: Sept/Oct 2026

Piney Empire

Empires don’t have to take a lifetime of work. Just ask Vern Hallead, who has only been at the hobby for about 20 years and just may be the model railroad magnate of Northeast Texas. Hallead had his massive HO-scale layout professionally built from bench work to structures to weathering to a painted backdrop for operations. And no piece of ballast has been left unturned on a kingdom that sits obscured by towering pine trees in a quiet lakeside neighborhood. The layout, loosely depicting towns within a few miles of where Vern and wife Sparky live was operational but had no name. Only after Vern consented to this story did his empire become the Jefferson & Lone Star Railway.

Ghost Train a Comin'

Paranormal activity on railroads is nothing new, as Pat Hiatte explains in a ghostly account sure to bring a shiver.

Touring Diorama

One NMRA member is spending his summer talking up model trains. But he doesn’t have a honed presentation and PowerPoint clicker. Darrell Cowles, MMR, is toting around a small, museum-quality HO diorama that’s getting second looks at local libraries with a subtle message: See what you can do with model trains?

Plus

BNSF’s planned intermodal facility in Barstow, CA, represents a fundamental shift in how freight will flow through California, the South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad’s No. 6071 is waving stars and stripes, Micro-Trains by Atlas makes its product debut with several freight car releases and pre-order announcements over the summer and a PSC 70-ton ore car pays tribute to a popular freelance Minnesota HO mining railroad. And more!