Understand that Texas state government has added at least 7200 people to their staff thus far this year, all in Austin. Re the train from Dallas-Houston, I’ll accept your first hand knowledge over what I’ve read and stand corrected. Do not expect Southwest Airlines to go quietly into the night on this one though. Also hope it doesn’t become another Amtrak with limited ridership and huge subsidies.
Nothing about anything involving Austin surprises me any more.
The Dallas-Houston outfit has already said that if they can’t make it work without government subsidy of any kind, they’re not going to do it.
Nobody’s expecting SWA to go down without a fight, but surprisingly SWA doesn’t seem to care all that much so far. They’re just happy the Wright Amendment is gone and they can now fly interstate without an intervening stop.
Keep in mind, though that both the Dallas-Houston and Austin-Dallas proposed lines have an aspect that makes them desirable - both intend to run freight on them, which will take a lot of truck traffic off 45 and 35 (respectively). In turn, that will allow more time for the state to decide what they want to do to fix those two highways, or at least reduce the state’s maintenance costs as it is. The Dallas-Houston one wouldn’t run heavy freight, just USPS/UPS/FedEx/LSO type light freight and packages to pay the bills - IIRC, there was a study that showed that fully 30 percent of truck traffic on 45 belonged to such organizations. If that much truck traffic goes away, it’s a plus for everyone. The Austin-Dallas one (the one that’s seeking government money to provide this benefit) is planning to do piggyback trailers on flatbed cars and containers on cars, very much heavier freight items. That sounds more like a candidate for the next Amtrak candidate to me.