DART Silver line to DFW Airport opened yesterday. Trains were standing room only this is the second station on the route. I am sure the free fare had nothing to do with the patronage. 
These are CPKC tracks into Dallas (Plano) one of two entry points, the other branches off near Wylie, TX and parallels Highway 78 into Garland first then onto Dallas.
This wasn’t the first train either photo is just named that way.
Looking West towards DART Red Line overpass, Silver line swings to left after the crossing to parallel the Red Line, tracks that go straight belong to CPKC.
Looking East towards Siloh Station around the bend up ahead and towards Wylie. Shared tracks with CPKC.
My son lives in Wylie; wonder if he is anywhere near this line? We do use Dart to ride to the AA arena for Stars games (Plano line); free parking a couple of stops north, easy on, exit to arena, easy back. No parking fees, avoid all the traffic congestion around the arena.
They have quite an ambitious long term rail plan. Now that the Silver Line is complete, I believe they are going to extend the Red Line to McKinney or at least McKinney thinks that is next on the DART agenda. They need funding for that, which looks unlikely from the Federal level.
I doubt that DART can expect any financial support from Austin, either.
Stay tuned and be patient on that. I think we have about another year of this nonsense before the rug is yanked hard. 
Rode the Silver Line yesterday, still in it’s free period. One of the smoothest riding rail transit journeys I have taken. Impressively fast acceleration.
Also, interesting the DART transit folks are asking passengers to be ready and standing at the doors to get them off the cars as fast as possible so they can make faster time (unprecedented in my experience but really cool, someone is thinking). Train the mass hordes of riders to be efficient, great idea in my view. Might turn the transit riders in this city via training to Swiss/German after all. As a consequence of the onboard departure training, station stops were very short and with the fast acceleration of the Stadler cars, seems they are taking full advantage here.
Just when this gets up and running and before the new maintenance facility is fully constructed in Plano. Plano says they want out of DART membership…back to the suburb vs big city fight again…eck. I am somewhat confident the vote to leave DART will fail but we’ll see. Plano has filled with Nimby’s since I first moved to Dallas. Time from Plano to Airport was just under an hour, auto competitive…also great.
Only one downside of trip. They put up these large wall barriers on either side of train due to developer wants and suburban complaints while it was being built. So not much view out the windows of the train until we got into shared trackage with the various Dallas freight railroads that intersected or ran alongside it.
According to CBS News, the city councils of Plano, Farmers Branch, and Highland Park have scheduled discussions to consider allowing residents to vote on whether to stay with DART or seek an alternative.
Based on 2023 numbers, if all three cities pulled out of DART, it would lose approximately $140 million in non-operating revenues, which include sales and use taxes, other federal grants, etc. In 2023 they made up 93.8 percent of DART’s revenues. Excluding reductions in farebox revenues realized in the three cities, a total withdrawal would result in a reduction in non-operating revenues of approximately 18 percent.
I don’t see it happening. I think the state would intervene.
The main complaint in Plano is they apportioned a share of the outstanding bond debt that needs to be repaid I believe I read which comes to about $150 million for Plano which sounds like a lot but it is trivial given the large Tax Base of Plano.
Plano is complaining the DART board is dominated by representatives from Dallas and it wants more say (which I suspect is the main issue)
The other issue of course given in the press is the whole transit brings crime from downtown line of argument which I think we both know has zero to do with crime.
Meh, look at that. Plano’s Mayor now says he wants to keep DART light rail but only want the buses to go. I wonder if the Feds played a role or if it was the State…inquiring minds want to know. 
Or does it have anything to do with the popularity of riding DART to Stars/Mavericks games? Supposedly the Stars are interested in developing a stadium in Frisco; they might want a DART line handy to help move folks to and from the games. I know one line terminates in Plano; not sure how DART would even get to Frisco.
I used to work in that area of Frisco. NTCOG has it in their plans to use the former Frisco rail line (now BNSF) as a commute rail line to Frisco, Prosper and points North.
Plano is complaining about lack of decent transit to West Plano, specifically in the Legacy development area. I used to work in Legacy a long time ago. The issue there is really Plano did not plan properly for a transit corridor. It is really not DART’s fault. Goes back years and in my view. Large part of the blame goes back to the Perot family (specifically Ross Perot). Perot wanted to keep costs cheap and max out his profit with that large plot of land. Plano was largely Perot’s company town in the 1980’s and they are paying for it now with the lack of a transit corridor in the West.
Perot is a nice guy on a personal level but in business he was very similar to Trump in a lot of ways. I never met the guy, just heard about him. Loyalty tests, vindictive if you were not loyal, detectives to look into peoples backgrounds, dossiers, etc, etc. He even hired a band of ex-SF military folks under Bo Green to rescue employees from Iran after the Shah fell. I ran into one of those Iran guys in Detroit (Paul Chapparoine, just saw him never chatted with him). I think there is a book on that even called Wings of Eagles or something.
I saw the movie about the Iran rescue on TV years ago. I think Burt Lancaster played the ex-military commander.
Ross Perot gave each of the rescued employees each a Super Bowl type ring to wear and of course this was somewhat common knowledge in EDS and you could confirm who they were via the ring. I think 2-3 stayed with the company and became EDS executives. They were in Iran setting up Iran’s Medicaid program for the Shah which interestingly was pretty much a lift and shift from the United States.
I have actually met Ross Perot. My brother worked at the production company that shot the commercials that he used in his presidential campaigns. My niece was the baby talent in several of those spots. Mr. Perot was invited to her first birthday party, and came to it; while a presidential candidate. He was definitely an interesting person.
