Alex Wolford
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thetexanrhino.bsky.social
Alex Wolford
@thetexanrhino.bsky.social
Writer Covering Transportation, Trains, and Sometimes Other Stuff. Work on Substack & Medium + @dmagazine.bsky.social
Dallas, TX | Columbia, MO
https://linktr.ee/TheTexanRhino
Pinned
New story about the recent No Kings protests and peaceful demonstration in our current moment.

substack.com/home/post/p-...
They Have The People
No Kings and Peaceful Protest
substack.com
Reposted by Alex Wolford
Trains
December 7, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Alex Wolford
I hate the part of writing where I know it's over for the day but maybe if I click between the dozens of tabs I have open for 30 minutes straight it will come back
December 5, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Peeking around the corner, a DGNO freight train rumbles onto the former MKT mainline. Overhead, viaducts carry the DART Green Line and Downtown Carrollton station, an artifact from the DART system being based on old freight rights-of-way.

Photograph by Sam Combs.
December 5, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Early in the years of DART light rail, two single-car LRVs met at a crowded West End station in 1998. At the time, the Red Line ran from Westmoreland to Park Lane Station, while the Blue Line only ran from Ledbetter to Pearl, where it terminated.

Photograph by Norman Gates.
December 4, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Trains rest on a fuel pad in the busy railroad junction town of Temple in the summer of 1986. From here, the Santa Fe system splits three ways: north to Fort Worth, south to Houston, and west to Brownwood.

Photograph by John Leopard.
December 3, 2025 at 1:48 PM
After some back and forth on the council, the City of Addison has chosen not to call for a DART withdrawal election.
December 3, 2025 at 3:16 AM
Where is Jane Remover? Where is Ninajirachi?

What have you done to them?!

Also, are artists just not allowed to release music in December if they want to be on one of these lists? Genuinely asking.
December 2, 2025 at 5:02 PM
In Texas snow, the Trinity Railway Express dashes across Little Fossil Creek on February 15th, 2021, as it accelerates westbound out of Richland Hills station. Service was suspended later that night as conditions from winter storm Uri worsened.

Photograph by Jadon Henderson.
December 2, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reading this old piece from @a320lga.bsky.social, and there is a lot relevant to DART and how to feed a light rail system. Or to put it more simply, "The suburbs have starry eyes for microtransit, and we are all going to pay for it."

homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2024/07/12/t...
The Forgotten History of Light Rail
For the last century, the central question of American transit planning has been how best to serve our suburbs. As people moved out of urban cores, bought cars, and began living decentralized lifes…
homesignalblog.wordpress.com
December 2, 2025 at 6:49 AM
From State Rep Matt Shaheen "DART is what taxi cabs used to be. They got replaced with something [rideshare] way more convenient. It did a much better job of accommodating the transportation demands of a region. [...] I mean, heck, with Elon Musk, we might have flying cars in years."
December 2, 2025 at 5:29 AM
Seen at Houston Union Station, the Santa Fe's California Special would travel to Clovis, New Mexico, where it would connect with the San Francisco Chief. To the left, the Houston segment of Missouri Pacific's Texas Eagle can also be seen. June 1968.

Photograph by Joe McMillan.
December 1, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Irving, August 1996: In the run-up for a withdrawal election, anti-DART advocates show off the capabilities of transit vans from the company Comsis.
November 29, 2025 at 2:36 AM
The M-Line trolley rattles down McKinney Avenue on a rainy day in Downtown Dallas, May 2007. This particular car, named Petunia, is a Birney Safety Car that ran on Dallas's streetcar system from the 1920s until 1947.

Photograph by Blair Kooistra.
November 28, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Alex Wolford
thanksgiving is over which means it's time for scary brown extension cords with no ground wires
November 27, 2025 at 10:48 PM
An eastbound Texas Eagle kicks up dust as it storms through the town of Grand Saline on the evening of September 12, 2015.

Photograph by Matt Shell.
November 27, 2025 at 1:30 PM
From tonight at DFW Airport: Traffic on International Parkway on the left, the Silver Line at Terminal B Station on the right.
November 27, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Reposted by Alex Wolford
Thirteen people were killed in a fire that spread across seven high-rise apartment buildings in a Hong Kong housing complex, and others were still trapped, the city’s fire services said.
13 people killed in fire engulfing Hong Kong high-rise residential buildings, fire services say
Thirteen people were killed in a fire that spread across seven high-rise apartment buildings in a Hong Kong housing complex.
bit.ly
November 26, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Just east of Amarillo, a C30-7 leads a Santa Fe manifest train as it hustles across the Panhandle. December 1986.

Photograph by John Leopard.
November 26, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Go read this. I can't say it reflects well on Dallas, but it is unmistakably our reflection.
The Dallasification of the American Dream, Part Two:

Paranoia merchants of the endless exurbs sit in gleaming new homes, fingering their weapons, aiming at enemies that exist in their minds.

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/america-is...
America Is Becoming Dallas
Part Two: Sprawling to Freedom
www.hamiltonnolan.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:50 PM
A Union Pacific manifest train rumbles into Union Station as the Dallas streetcar crosses overhead on the Houston Street Viaduct. Barely visible on the other side of the convention center, a DGNO train can be seen following close behind.

Photograph by Matt Shell.
November 25, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Alex Wolford
"there are no third spaces anymore" wrong. blast furnace
November 25, 2025 at 12:59 AM
A crewman snags new train orders as the Katy Flyer passes by Hunt depot, just south of Greenville, May 1962.

Photograph by John B. Charles.
November 24, 2025 at 11:07 PM
She took the midnight train goin’… to Plano, Texas?
November 24, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Hey there
November 23, 2025 at 11:22 PM
The M/S John W. Johnson ferry prepares to dock at Galveston, having just arrived from Port Bolivar on the morning of July 9, 2017. This ferry line is one of two that TxDOT operates and one of three in Texas.

Photograph by Matt Harvey
November 23, 2025 at 9:26 PM