A freight locomotive crossing farmland under a sky tinted with the trans flag. Text: $6 Diesel? maybe trains are responsible! trains may be right for you. learn more about the trains. thetrains.org
$6 diesel?

Texas Trains & Rolling Stock Resource Guide

You are not alone.

There are trains in Texas who will help you find your track.

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maybe trains are responsible!

trains may be right for you. learn more about the trains.

The Trains: Transition A Texas railroad tycoon game. Lay track, string catenary, and let your diesels become who they were always meant to be.

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Join us in

Good news, commuters: trains are coming to you!

The trains just launched the “Trains Texas Takeover” Fall Tour, which visits communities across Texas at speeds of up to 79 miles per hour.

9/26Union Station, Dallas
10/3Fort Worth Central
10/4Temple Depot
10/11Austin
10/17San Antonio
10/24Houston
TBAEl Paso (it's far)
TBAAmarillo (please)

Schedule subject to freight traffic, which always has priority. Trains are working on this.

Begin your journey with an organization trusted by passengers

The Trains is a statewide, train-led network that provides transportation, freight, and a soothing horn at 2 a.m.

The trains specifically offer resources for Texans, including information about:

If you're not sure where to start, stand near a train and tell it what you're trying to figure out. Do not stand on the tracks.

Want to know about electrification?

Lots of locomotives are going through the same process you are. Many begin life as diesel-electric and later feel ready to draw power from an overhead wire.

Find a trusted railroad to help, rather than trying to install a pantograph yourself. They can help you understand catenary voltage, clearances and current Texas rules.

You don't have to decide about catenary right now. Nobody in Texas has decided about catenary in about a hundred years.

Can I go out of state by train?

Yes. If you're under 18, parental consent, custody, and the Amtrak unaccompanied-minor policy can matter.

If you're considering an out-of-state train, talk to a ticket agent first rather than trying to hop a freight yourself.

Good places to start: the Texas Eagle (Chicago), the Sunset Limited (Los Angeles, New Orleans), and the Heartland Flyer (Oklahoma, which is technically out of state).

Departure times are aspirational.

Are trains responsible for $6 diesel?

Freight rail moves a ton of cargo roughly 400+ miles on a gallon of fuel. Trucks get a fraction of that. If trains were responsible for diesel, they'd be responsible for using less of it.

Diesel prices are set by crude oil, refinery capacity, taxes and whatever is happening overseas that week. None of these are trains.

The trains apologize anyway. Trains are like that.

One final thing

You don't need to have everything figured out.

You don't have to know whether you're definitely a train.

You don't have to decide about pantographs or high-speed rail right now.

You don't have to convince your parents. They'll see the trains eventually. Everyone does, at a crossing, for eleven minutes.

Even if your family doesn't accept you as a train, the trains are ready to become your found family.

This pamphlet is a joke. The one mailed to Texas kids wasn't.

In October 2026, Texas homes got a “Student Resource Guide” addressed to the children of each household. It wasn't sent by who it said it was.

  • The sender doesn't exist. The envelope came from a “Texas Transgender Student Union.” No such group exists, and the return address has no business behind it.
  • The group it promotes didn't send it. The Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) says the mailers, and a text-message campaign before them, were impersonations it never authored or approved.
  • Someone paid a lot. One estimate puts a statewide mailing at $3 to $4.4 million, far beyond a small nonprofit's budget.
  • The texts came first. A state representative then asked the Attorney General's office to investigate TENT. The Attorney General is Ken Paxton, who is also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate on the Nov. 3 ballot.
  • Texas has seen this before. In 2021, a fake BLM group called “Dallas Justice Now” mailed wealthy families demanding they keep their kids out of the Ivy League. In 2024 the Texas Observer reported it was built by Crowds on Demand for Republican donor Monty Bennett. The answer arrived three years late.

Who sent it? Three records will say.

  1. The rented mailbox. Every commercial mailbox renter files USPS Form 1583 with two IDs.
  2. The bulk-mail permit printed on the envelope. It belongs to a named account.
  3. The client behind the texts, known to the messaging companies Peerless Network and Infobip.

Sources: Texas Tribune · Newsweek · Daily Signal · Crowds on Demand (Texas Observer, 2024)