Texas Central, developers of the high-speed train between Dallas and Houston, has signed a contract with Renfe to be the Early Operator for the transformational project aiming to revolutionize travel in Texas.

Renfe is one of the world’s most significant railways operators, running 5,000 trains daily on 7,500 miles of track. The company is integral to the transport system in Spain, its home base, handling more than 510 million passengers and 17 million tons of freight moved in 2019.

As the Early Operator, Renfe will work alongside Texas Central on the design and development of the commercial aspects of the high-speed train system. The Early Operator will focus on providing key expertise and supporting senior decision makers, leveraging existing capabilities within Texas Central’s integrated organization. The agreement is the latest example of the project bringing on board the industry’s best subject matter experts from across the globe. It comes just a couple of weeks after Texas Central announced it named the multinational firm Webuild to lead the civil construction consortium that will build the passenger line. Webuild will be responsible for all work up to the top of the rail, including viaducts, embankments and drainage.

Renfe will also provide advisory and consulting services to Texas Central on final design, execution, construction, testing and commissioning of Civil, Station and buildings, Installation, Core Systems and O&M technology and plans and processes, as well as all commercial aspects of the HSR system.

The announcement is the latest milestone for the investor-led project. In July, Texas Central Signed a contract with Webuild to serve as Design-build lead, and late last year, the company reached two historic milestones when the Federal Railroad Administration issued the final Rule of Particular Applicability (RPA) and the Record of Decision (ROD) for the project.

Now that these milestones have been reached, the required elements are in place for the company to fully focus on the final due diligence and secure permanent financing.

The system Texas Central Railroad proposes to build in Texas will replicate the proven Japanese Tokaido Shinkansen high-speed rail system, as operated by the Central Japan Railway Company (JRC). Texas Central chose this system because it is one of the safest and most punctual train systems in the world. In its 55+ year history, it has transported over 10 billion passengers with an impeccable safety record of zero operational passenger fatalities and zero accidents since first deployed. This technology reliably moves more than 400,000 passengers every day.

The project will create an estimated 17,000 direct jobs during the six years of construction, over 20,000 supply chain jobs and more than 1,400 direct permanent jobs when the train is fully operational. The Texas Central project will use $7.3 billion of materials from US companies across 37 states. And, over the next 25 years, this project will have a direct cumulative economic impact of $36 billion.

-via Press Release