Visit 130+ wineries within an hour. That was the vision.
“It was a stupid vision,” says Gillespie County Treasurer, Katy Dreyfus. “I said a bullet train in the Texas Hill Country was dumb and the feasibility study proves I’m right. 42-million-a-mile! And that’s before cost overruns! There’s always cost overruns. The printer charged us a seven-dollar stapling fee. Nobody saw that coming. Let’s start there.”
“See that picture of the bullet train on the cover of the study? Nine dollars for the copyright! Am I the only one who cares about controlling costs? Hell, some middle-school art teacher could’ve drawn a train for free if we had some good dirt on ‘em. They shoulda talked to me first.”
“130 wineries in an hour comes out to 45 seconds at each one,” she continues while sipping on a Red Bull. “Yeah, like that’s enough time to enjoy a tasting. And they can’t stay longer because, according to page 38…”
To extend the time spent at each winery while keeping the total trip under an hour, the train would have to accelerate to extreme speeds between stops. The resulting G-forces would cause severe motion sickness for passengers who already have 40 or 50 sips of wine in their systems. That will require an additional cost to hose down the seats at the end of each trip.
“Gillespie County doesn’t have millions in cash just laying around. I know, I’ve looked. Or is it lying around? Whatever. They need to downsize the project. If they find more money they can add stations down the line. See what I did there? ‘Down the line?’ Catchy, right?”
Knowing Ms. Dreyfus was probably correct all along, and in an effort to get her to stop talking, the County Judge ordered the project to be downsized to just two stations — Fredericksburg and The Fat Ass Brewery. At 300 miles an hour, the 11-mile trip will take two minutes, twelve seconds.
“It’s ‘lying’ around. I just looked it up,” Dreyfus continued, reaching for another Red Bull. “This new plan is also dumb. An average of 38 people make that trip each day. If the feds throw in half the cash, a one-way ticket will still cost $640,000. We don’t have the money to upgrade our Mr. Coffee machine to the new model with the decalcify button, yet we have money to get to Fat Ass Brewery ten minutes quicker?”
Coffee service is actually one of the things being considered in the revised project. It’s estimated that adding onboard coffee service would bring in an additional $34 per trip. [1]
“How ‘bout we get rid of the seats?” Dreyfus asks while crushing an empty can against her forehead. “Let everyone bring their own lawn chairs like when they go to the beach. They can tie ‘em down with rope. Maybe we can sell ‘em rope.”
[1] This figure assumes everybody on the train buys one cup which isn’t guaranteed.
Billiam Coronel is a multiple Emmy-winning comedy writer who now lives in the Texas Hill Country. He was on The Tonight Show multiple times and wrote on a dozen sitcoms including FAMILY GUY.