COMMENT OF THE DAY: LINGERING FEARS OF BEING GRAZED BY A BULLET TRAIN 
“The railroad needs to make 2 major cases: first, that those tinkertoy power stanchions won’t be any uglier than the high-tension lines that are already there on most of their route; and more importantly, that the disturbance from passing trains won’t impair cattle production nearby. I seem to recall that ‘it’ll scare the cows’ was the final nail in the coffin of the previous Texas Triangle HSR attempt. Once they have official eminent domain authority, there will be no stopping this project.” [, commenting on Bullet Train Backers: Not Trying To Take Any Land Yet, Just Want To Know How Much We’d Owe You]
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Ranchers want culverts put in to allow their cattle to continue to graze on the other side of the train. To me it is a good argument on the land owners side, their operations could be rendered non-commercial if access to part of their property is blocked. From what I can tell fixes to this problem are quite simple.
I enjoy seeing these stories and highly suggest everyone read up on the power railroads in the development of Texas, it is very dramatic and interesting.
Once all the cities in Texas were on waterways as that was the only reasonable way to move freight.
Railroads came through and completely changed the fortunes of these towns, some that were mighty collapsed and some that were tiny boomed. There are some interesting stories of mayors bribing railroad surveyors to put the route through their city as opposed to a neighbor, and the effects of that can still be seen today.
The cows will be scared at first but they’ll get used to it.
Do they install a fence or something to keep the cows off the tracks?
As a way to use land and resources, cattle suck. As a way to transport people, high speed rail that you have to drive far from downtown to get to sucks. It’s like the Trump v. Clinton of land use. Is there a way they can *both* lose?