DALLAS -- A state court trial set for July will determine if a railroad in Texas can use eminent domain to obtain land for its planned 240-mile high speed rail line between Dallas and Houston.
The trial that will begin July 3 will focus on whether the Texas Central Railroad meets the state's requirements as an official railway company with the power to survey private land and then obtain it through Texas eminent domain laws.
Construction of the high-speed rail line, which would cut the travel time between the cities to 90 minutes from the current three to five hours, is expected to cost $10 billion. The high-speed Texas line will use the electric-powered Tokaido Shinkansen train technology currently in operation in Japan.
The line will be privately financed, although sponsors have said they intend to seek low-interest federal loans to help build it.
Texas Central wants to operate at least 60 trains per day, running at more than 205 mph. The tracks would run along the top of a 14-foot high berm through the mostly rural areas between the two cities.
The trial date was set after Harris County District Judge Joseph Halbach denied the railroad's sponsors request for summary judgment in a land survey case. The railroad filed suit in August against Calvin House, who owns 440 acres in northwest Harris County, after he refused to allow surveyors for the project onto his land.
The House case is one of 38 lawsuits filed by Texas Central attorneys against recalcitrant landowners along the route through the Brazos Valley, 23 of them in Harris County.
House said he stopped surveyors from coming on to his land six times before Texas Central sued him.
"Now I see why they never could show me a piece of paper saying they had eminent domain like condemning authorities are required to do," he said. "It's because they never had it to begin with."
Texas Central asked Halbach for a summary judgment that it is a "railroad company" and an "interurban electric railway" as defined in the Texas Transportation Code. That would have allowed Texas Central to survey privately held land without interference from the landowner.
Attorneys for the anti-rail group Texans Against High-Speed Rail contended that Texas Central is not a railroad company because it owns no tracks or locomotives and does not operate passenger or freight rail service.
Halbach's ruling is "a smoking gun," said Grimes County Judge Ben Leman, who chairs the anti-rail group.
"This company has been threatening and suing landowners, sending harassing letters, trespassing, and pushing option contracts with the threat of eminent domain for over a year, and they have been doing so without any proof of eminent domain," Leman said. "The Japanese should reconsider where they implement their train, because in Texas we respect private property rights and will not tolerate this type of behavior."
Texas Central said it has not harassed or intimidated property owners along the route.
"We will continue to work with landowners in a direct and respectful manner as the project moves ahead as planned," the company said in a statement.
"The decision does not set any kind of precedent, and we will show in a full trial that state law, established for more than a century, clearly gives railroad companies the right to conduct land surveys without interference," Texas Central said. "We will demonstrate that in the trial and look forward to our day in court."
