For years, local leaders have touted high speed rail as a future want and need for Texas, and especially in the Bryan/College Station area. Now that added emphasis has been placed on it at the national level, the fight is on for federal dollars.

President Obama has set aside billions of dollars for rail projects to begin across the country. The much-discussed "Texas T-Bone" has now taken on a more prominent spot in the transportation world.

In its annual trip to Washington, the B/CS Chamber of Commerce delegation met with the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. James Oberstar. The Minnesota congressman's representatives, with local Congressman Chet Edwards on hand, were able to get the ball rolling on the wording in legislation set to be introduced.

That legislation would now mandate that if federal dollars are slated to go to a Texas high speed rail project, the configuration would have to be the T-Bone. In the plan, two lines would run perpendicular to each other, one running from Dallas to San Antonio through the Killeen/Fort Hood area. From the Army installation, a second line would run southeast to Houston through Bryan/College Station.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison also met with the local delegation, agreeing that high speed rail and multi-modal transportation is a necessity going forward for the state, and that if rail becomes a reality, the T-Bone is the best way to go.

Part of the rationale is for there to be a direct route from Fort Hood to a port to make troop and equipment transport easier in a rapid deployment.

Chamber delegates said the meeting with Rep. Oberstar's team and the subsequent language put into pending legislation may have been among the biggest and most immediate major developments the delegation has had in its nine years of going to Washington.