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High Performance Railroads: Interstate II for the 21st Century
800 Jaguar Lane * Dallas * Texas * 75226
www.TexasRailAdvocates.org
Our mission is to accelerate Texas's economic growth and enhance the quality of life enjoyed by its people by advancing the development of rail service to its full potential as a carrier of freight and passengers. |
2008 Theme:
High Performance Rail
Solving the Congestion Challenge!
Presenters
 John Barton, a newly appointed Assistant Executive Director at TxDOT - A new direction for the Texas Department of Transportation? |
 Linda Harper Brown, Texas State Representative |
 Pete Rickershauser, BNSF VP of Network Development (Thursday evening dinner speaker) |
 Gilbert Carmichael: Senior Chairman, Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver - Due to illness, did not make it to the conference |
 "The Train to the Plane" - Andrew Sharp, Director, International Air Rail Organization |
 "Why the first try at High Speed Rail in Texas failed and what we can learn from it" - Hal Cooper, President, Cooper Engineering |
 "A National Vision for Passenger Rail Service" - Ross Capon, Executive Director, National Association of Railroad Passengers, Washington D.C. |
 "Incentives to Increase Freight Rail Capacity" - Patsy Harris, Go21 |
 Don Phillips, Internationally recognized transportation writer who also covered transportation issues for the Washington Post |
 "Illinois' Success Story on Higher Speed Rail" - Rick Harnish, Executive Director, Midwest High Speed Rail Association |
 Update from Joe Adams, Chairman's Special Representative, Union Pacific Railroad |
 Curtis Morgan, Multi Modal Freight Transportation, Texas Transportation Institute |
 Tim Gillespie, BGL Associates (formerly Vice President of Governmental Affairs for Amtrak) and an Officer for the Passenger Rail Today Political Action Committee. |
 "The Growth and Development of the TGV High Speed Rail Network." Jean-Pierre Arduin, Advisor to the Chairman, French National Railway, and Sebastian Gourgouillat with the Economic Department of the Embassy of France. |
| Chad Edwards - North Central Texas Council of Governments |
Agenda
The final Agenda has been posted in a PDF file.
Corridor Map
Who attended?
Civil Engineers, shippers, local, county and state officials, Chambers of Commerce, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, Commercal real estate developers, architects, Council of Governments, rail industry suppliers, and advocates for improving freight and passenger rail in Texas.
NARP Region 9 (TxARP) The National Association of Railroad Passengers, Region 9 (Texas Association of Railroad Passengers) held their annual meeting at the same location the day after our conference, February 2, 2008. If you would like more information on the TxARP Annual Meeting, please visit: www.tempo-rail.org/NARP.htm Participants were encouraged to attend both conferences if they were able. |
Location
The conference was held at the Magnolia Hotel in downtown Dallas. Click here for a Google Map of the hotel location. The Magnolia has a special "South Central High Performance Rail Conference" rate of $139 for the evening of Jan. 31st. This discount rate has been extended to those who make reservations by Jan 11th.
You can see an online video tour of the hotel. We wil be meeting in the Pegasus Ball Room which is actually across the street from the Hotel in the Pegasus building. Below is a picture of the Pegasus Room. In this picture it is setup for a wedding reception, but we will have conference chairs and tables for our conference:
Info on Previous TRA Conferences
Summation
The conference was a great success and about one hundred people participated. We thank all of you for making it such a success. In particular, we thank our sponsors:
In case you could not make the conference, we have posted videos of the conference on Google Video.
