AUSTIN, Texas — Austin and San Antonio could one day be connected by passenger rail capable of speeds up to 125 mph, and two separate feasibility studies are laying out very different ways to make it happen — with very different costs.

Travis County Judge Andy Brown said he has been working with the Texas Department of Transportation and local and state leaders to explore options for passenger rail service between the Austin and San Antonio areas.

“I’ve been working with TxDOT and sort of the neighboring county judges and mayors and city council folks and some folks from the legislature for a couple of years and trying to figure out how we could have great passenger rail service between the Austin area and the San Antonio area,” Brown said.

TxDOT released the results of one study a few months ago, Brown said. One option would use the Union Pacific route, which runs alongside Interstate 35. Brown said that plan would cost about $1.9 billion and would include improving and replacing portions of track and adding sidings and other upgrades to allow for eight passenger trains per day.

“The differences between the two results are that the first study, the TxDOT study, I’ll call it, says that it will cost about $1.9 billion to improve the tracks, to replace a lot of the tracks, to add sidings and other things so that we could have eight passenger trains per day going on the Union Pacific route,” Brown said.

A second proposed route would be far more expensive — about $13 billion — and would run from downtown Austin down State Highway 130 and along Interstate 10 into San Antonio.

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Chandra Bhat, the George Ring Chair Professor of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and an expert in transportation demand and behavior, said the Union Pacific corridor could serve a demand, if it can be pulled off.

“There’s a whole lot of action happening within the corridor, and that is where the Union Pacific, if that can be pulled off, really serves a substantial market,” Bhat said.

Bhat said each option comes with tradeoffs. “130 and I-10 has a lot to offer, but obviously it comes with a huge price tag, while the Union Pacific corridor, that is pretty straight down from Austin to San Antonio,” Bhat said.

One major issue with the Union Pacific option is combining passenger rail with Union Pacific’s freight rail operations and getting permission to use the tracks. The alternative would require building new track, which comes with a much higher cost and questions about location.

Rail proposals in Texas have faced repeated obstacles over the years. “There has been a lot of talk about rail in Texas. We’ve talked about Houston to Dallas. There’s Project Connect in Austin. There’s this project. There’s been talk about the [Texas] triangle and connecting it all by rail. And it just seems to keep hitting barriers,” I said to Brown.

Brown said he has seen support for the concept across party lines. “So I’m a Democrat. I’m here in Austin and Travis County. I’ve been working with Republicans on this plan. I’ve been working with TXDOT and with the state government on this concept. And I’ve noticed that there’s no partisanship to this talk,” Brown said.

After a route is selected, the next step would be seeking federal funding. Brown said that once funding and political support are secured, construction would take about two and a half years. Stakeholders have already been having conversations with JR Rail, the company behind the bullet train in Japan. The company has had a presence in Texas for years.