Las Vegas Monorail back in service!

[MP57313]

After a long-planned trip to Las Vegas, I was bummed to read the monorail was taken out of service a couple days before Labor Day (TRAINS news wire).
As luck would have it, the monorail returned to service on Tuesday, 9/7, and seemed to be running fine. My wife and I rode it a few times that day.

The monorail is a fun ride in itself, a bit like the one at Disneyland (you cannot move from car to car without stepping out to the platform), and runs along the "back" of some of the hotels on the strip. $3 one trip; $5.50 two trips; $10 day pass. It is air conditioned (Vegas was 98-101 these past few days).

MP

[dknelson]

I was in Vegas for a business trip in the spring -- it sure would have been handy if that monorail system had been up and running then. It runs right behind the Flamingo where I stayed. The locals were pretty bitter about it's costs. I don't know if I'll ever get back there. I wandered a bit from the strip and did get in a bit of railfanning. Vegas is quite a place.
Dave Nelson

[MP57313]

Well now I see in Trains news wire that they shut it down again Wednesday after a part fell off. Sheesh!

What are the complaints about...ticket prices? The news item mentioned that the monorail was privately financed. Maybe the investors are grumbling ( the TV news item mentioned they lose [don't recover] $100K gross for each day the system is down.)

[dknelson]

Well now that I think of it the "local" who complained to me about the Monorail was the cab driver who drove me in from the airport! I think that might explain his motivation. (Some of the cheapest cab fares in the country are in Washington DC because the Metro system there is extensive and dirt dirt cheap, subsidized by the taxpayers of course but the cabs have to be rather cheap too to compete).
Dave Nelson