Amtrak's
Texas Eagle is the direct successor of the
Missouri Pacific Railroad and
Texas and Pacific Railway train of the same name, which was inaugurated in 1948 and ultimately discontinued in 1971. The route of Amtrak's
Texas Eagle is longer (
Chicago to
San Antonio versus
St. Louis to San Antonio), but much of today's route is historically a part of the original
Texas Eagle route. St. Louis to
Texarkana and
Taylor, Texas, to San Antonio travels over former Missouri Pacific Railroad trackage, while the Texarkana to
Fort Worth segment traverses the former Texas and Pacific Railway. The T&P merged with MoPac in 1982; in turn MoPac was acquired by
Union Pacific in 1986. The
Eagle began on October 2, 1981, as a restructuring of the
Inter-American, which had operated a daily schedule from Chicago to
Laredo, Texas, via San Antonio since 1973. From 1979 onward, it operated a section to
Houston, Texas, which diverged at
Temple, Texas. The new
Eagle dropped the Houston section, while its southern terminus was cut back from Laredo to San Antonio. The new train carried
Superliner equipment, replacing the
Amfleet coaches on the
Inter-American. In addition, the new train ran on a thrice-weekly schedule with a
through car on the
Sunset Limited to
Los Angeles, although the latter was not announced until the April 1982 timetable. On November 15, 1988, Amtrak revived a Houston section, this time diverging at Dallas and running over the route of the
Southern Pacific's
Sunbeam. It was the first time passenger traffic had served that route since 1958. Amtrak had intended to operate the
Lone Star over this route back in the 1970 but the Southern Pacific declined to host the service and requested the National Arbitration Panel review the request. The Panel's consultant provided a reasonable cost estimate for track and signal upgrades but Amtrak abruptly withdrew the request in March 1974. With the change, Amtrak revived the name
Texas Eagle for the thrice-weekly Chicago-San Antonio/Houston train, while the off-day Chicago–St. Louis train remained the
Eagle. This section would be discontinued on September 10, 1995. In February 1998, one weekly
Texas Eagle was extended west to Los Angeles independent of the
Sunset Limited, providing a fourth weekly round trip between Los Angeles and San Antonio. Daily service between Chicago and San Antonio resumed on May 21, 2000.
Infill stations were added at
Hope, Arkansas, on April 4, 2013; and at
Arcadia, Missouri on November 17, 2016. In August 2023, Amtrak approved construction of an infill station in
De Soto, Missouri. Service was reduced to tri-weekly throughout the corridor from October 11, 2020, to May 24, 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The train operated only five days per week from January 2022 to March 2022 due to the
Omicron variant.
Proposed changes In the August 2009 issue of
Trains, Brian Rosenwald, Amtrak's chief of product management, noted that the
Sunset Limited might be replaced by an extension of the
Texas Eagle to Los Angeles: "We projected the revenue and looked at the logistics, and with a little bit of rescheduling came to the conclusion that we can make this happen with the equipment we have, and the additional revenue the train earns will more than cover the increased operating costs". The move would restore a connection to the
Coast Starlight in both directions, and move boarding in Maricopa and Tucson, Arizona, to civilized times. "We are putting a stake in the ground: Triweekly needs to disappear," Rosenwald said. While the route of the
Sunset Limited would not be entirely replaced, the performance improvements listed explain what will happen: • Conversion to daily
Chicago–
Los Angeles train • Shortening of the schedule by 9 hours •
San Antonio–
New Orleans stub service on a daily basis to connect with this train • Use of the Diner-Lounge on the stub service These changes would, in turn, create a through-car change similar to that of the
Empire Builder. Such service would originate from Los Angeles and split at San Antonio, and vice versa from New Orleans. Amtrak suspended plans to convert the
Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited into a daily train when UP opposed it, arguing that to run daily service, Amtrak would first have to invest more than $750millions in infrastructure improvements along the route west of San Antonio. UP has subsequently made investments to increase the capacity of the Sunset Route by constructing new sidings and double track sections along the Route. Passenger totals would double with daily service, according to the PRIIA study that looked at
Texas Eagle/
Sunset Limited service. It forecast an incremental improvement of more than 100,000 passengers from the daily service, which is already running in excess of 100,000 a year. However, Amtrak still lacks the equipment and funds needed to move to daily service. In June 2021, Senator
Jon Tester of
Montana added an amendment to the Surface Transportation Investment Act of 2021 which would require the
U.S. Department of Transportation (not Amtrak itself) to evaluate daily service on all less frequent long-distance trains, meaning the
Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited and
Cardinal. The bill passed the
Senate Commerce Committee with bipartisan support, and was later rolled into
President Biden's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which Congress passed on November5, 2021. The report is known as the
Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study and must be delivered to Congress within two years. In June 2023, Amtrak submitted an application for a federal grant to increase
Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited service to operate daily. ==Operation==