Dallas / Fort Worth and Me

Let’s pick up from where we left off last time, shall we?

So there I was, in Houston — almost home, I thought. Little did I know that the worst was yet to come. Here’s a big tip: if you get stranded in Houston, don’t expect tea and sympathy from Continental, ExpressJet or from Bush International Airport, especially when they can blame things on the weather. Sure, if they’d actually tried to help everyone they’d have taken a huge financial hit that day — but sometimes you have to suck it up and service the customer. I’ve owned a business or two, so I know what I’m taking about. ExpressJet treated me and my fellow passengers like annoying bugs. This isn’t the way to succeed; it’s a recipe for failure. Aren’t two bankruptcies of the parent corporation enough to teach them anything?

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I recently endured an experience that provides me with a good, heartwarming opportunity to warn you about the kind of treatment you can expect at the hands of some Texas airlines and airports, depending on the weather. Beware, traveler: this could happen to you! (Cue dramatic music.)

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Hey there, and welcome to the exciting conclusion of our scintillating discussion of the existing DART train lines and their currently active stations! I know you’re all excited, but please hold your applause until the very end, if you will.

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It occurred to me, recently, that I’ve bit a bit presumptuous in my discussion of the whithers and wherefores of that most sublime of public transports in our fair Metroplex, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) rail system. Sure, I’ve given you the basics: how much you pay, what the trains look like inside and out, and a general idea of what the routes are and where they go. But have I actually provided the particulars of where, exactly, you can catch the train? I fear not, beyond mention of a few of the stations. My goal with this blog entry is to remedy that.

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And we’re back, with another exciting episode of — Ride that Train!

When last we met our dauntless hero, he was stuck at Union Station in downtown Dallas, complaining about the employees and waiting for the Trinity Railway Express. Now it’s almost an hour later, and he’s had to wait soda-less in a boring transit center for almost an hour. Fortunately it’s somewhat cool inside, which makes up for the lack of visual stimulation. It’s rather more exciting outside, especially if you like pigeons, but our hero has never much been into squab — and besides, it’s so hot that it’s almost as if Ming the Merciless has ignited another sun in the sky.

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A few weeks ago, I took a nice train trip to Fort Worth with my family. It’s wasn’t one of those purposeful jaunts; it was for entertainment, mostly, but there was a bit of education thrown in there too. Despite the fact that I’ve lived in Dallas for 14 years and DART has been available for most of that time, I’m a Texas boy through and through, and I prefer to gallivant about the D/FW Metroplex in my car. This being the case, I’m not as familiar with the system as I might be. I’ve taken the DART train Red Line from one end to the other (Plano to Westmoreland Road deep in Dallas), but I’d never been on the Blue Line from Garland, and I’d never taken the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth.

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In this exciting episode of D/FW and Me, we’ll talk about the spiffy new DART trains we’ve got down here. Back in the mid-1990s, when I was still an archeologist, we caught wind of an interesting project called DART — Dallas Area Rapid Transit. The idea was to put rail-lines into service connecting all the major towns and cities of the Metroplex. It sounded like a good idea, but we weren’t sure how well it would go over with the public. We Texans do like our cars.

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Let’s talk transportation. No matter when you decide to come to Dallas, you’re going to have to get around somehow. Sure, I could take you places, but you’d probably get tired of me real quick, and I have to admit that the best I have to offer is a Ford Focus. It’s a nice little car, and I’ve only got one more payment till it’s mine, but there’s not that much space inside and you don’t want to trust your luggage and goodies to the trunk. It doesn’t quite shut these days. As with so many other things, something went wrong during my recent move — and the less said about that, the better. Let’s just say that my poor old car got a lot more of a workout than I bargained for.

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