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- <text id=91TT1262>
- <title>
- June 10, 1991: Business Notes:Transportation
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- June 10, 1991 Evil
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 47
- Business Notes
- TRANSPORTATION
- The Shrinking Of Texas
- </hdr><body>
- <p> It isn't faster than a speeding bullet, but for Lone Star
- staters in a hurry the so-called bullet train authorized last
- week by the Texas high-speed rail authority may be the next best
- thing: a 200-m.p.h. high-tech wonder that should eventually link
- Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin in a 620-mile commuter
- triangle--America's first ultra fast rail line.
- </p>
- <p> Texas went to the private sector for a train that could
- traverse the unending stretches of the Old West at a pace
- compatible with 21st century business. The winner of the 50-year
- franchise for the $5.5 billion project: Texas TGV, an alliance
- of 19 engineering firms and financiers from North America and
- France, where high-speed rail travel is a commonplace. The
- consortium promises a 1 1/2-hour Dallas-to-Houston run by 1998
- (the trip now takes four hours by car). Opposing the move is
- Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, which foresees government
- bailouts, high ticket prices and eventual failure for the
- futuristic choo-choo. If it is wrong, Southwest may have a hard
- time competing with the bullet, even though air travel is
- swifter still.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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