DOT Terminates Funding for Texas Train
High-speed rail projects across the U.S. continue to be challenged as the federal government reviews the effectiveness of its expenditures. On April 14, 2025, the Department of Transportation (DOT) terminated Amtrak’s contract with Texas Central Partners to build the Texas Central Railway, a high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston. The $63.9 million in unspent funds will be used elsewhere in the Amtrak system.
The plans for the project were revealed in 2009 as a privately funded system by Lone Star High Speed Rail LLC, which became Texas Central Partners. But the company determined that it needed federal assistance and applied for Railroad Rehabilitation and Investment Financing (RRIF) loans. In a 2018 op-ed published in the Longview News Journal, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz predicted based on ridership projections that Dallas and Houston lacked sufficient market demand for the high volume of rides needed to justify a multi-billion dollar public expenditure on high-speed rail, as Texans have high rates of car ownership and the two cities have low rates of public transportation use. In 2019, CAGW raised concerns about the project’s financial viability and public expense, noting that RRIF loans have weak taxpayer protections and could be awarded to entities lacking the resources to repay them.
The project’s administrators were in such financial straits by 2020 that they suggested using money from the CARES Act to keep the project afloat. In 2021, the projected cost was $16 billion, but by 2024 it had reached $30 billion.
Texas Central Railway has faced fierce opposition leading to legal disputes over its authority to seize land from rural landowners using eminent domain as government-backed rail lines have done in other states. As of early 2025, the company had secured only about 25 percent of the necessary land parcels needed for the 240-mile route. While the railway has political support in the metropolitan areas of Texas, it has received almost universal condemnation across rural Texas. But rural Texans are not the only ones heated up over the project. The North Central Texas Council of Governments is pushing another proposed local passenger rail line between downtown Dallas and Fort Worth that would connect to the Texas Central line. This proposal caused a stir, however, when it was revealed that the line’s planned route would force Hyatt Hotels to partially demolish its Dallas property and potentially cancel a $5 billion mixed-used economic development project near the new Dallas convention center.
The Trump administration made the right decision to remove federal funding from the wasteful Texas Central Railway project. This should serve as a warning to infrastructure planners from coast to coast to prioritize feasible and fiscally responsible projects instead of trains that will never leave the station.
