@ai6yr

So there's an amtrak route that goes right through houston.

4 hours on a slow US train still gets you about 180 miles.

Here's the amtrak route map, though it's a 575 MiB pdf file.
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/Maps/Amtrak-System-Map-081325.pdf