L. A. to Vegas. Why not?

[Chafford1]

DesertXpress quote $3 to $5 billion for their scheme - to build 190 miles of double track 125mph railway!  Sounds far too cheap to me!

The other problem is starting the service at Victorville rather than L.A. Will enough people park their cars at Victorville and take the train to make the venture profitable? 

Surely any venture should be targeting the L.A to Las Vegas airlines? The new Madrid - Barcelona high speed line in Spain is a good example of this. 

  

 

[tomikawaTT]

DesertXpress quote $3 to $5 billion for their scheme - to build 190 miles of double track 125mph railway!  Sounds far too cheap to me!

That might pay for the initial survey, the IAS, permitting and part of the land acquisition.

The other problem is starting the service at Victorville rather than L.A. Will enough people park their cars at Victorville and take the train to make the venture profitable? 

Once a driver climbs Cajon, the temptation to just keep going will be all but irresistable!  As for reverse traffic (Las Vegas residents wanting to go to LA,) if there isn't a rent-a-car service at Victorville, that simply won't happen - and is very unlikely to happen even if there is a rental counter right in the station.

Surely any venture should be targeting the L.A to Las Vegas airlines? The new Madrid - Barcelona high speed line in Spain is a good example of this.

What seems to be getting overlooked is that Madrid-Barcelona (and London-Paris, and Tokyo-Osaka on the original Shinkansen) will be attracting BUSINESS travelers, not pleasure seekers.  Sin City is NOT a center of commerce.

Also, if anyone expects the Las Vegas casinos to pay any part of the cost of LA-LV rail they're hallucinating.  The big operators would rather spend that money opening 'branch offices' in Macau.

Chuck (Clark County, NV, resident)

[conrailman]

We need the Desert Wind back.

[alphas]

All those people ranting about oil company profits seem to forget that the major reason they have increased is the oil companies are simply selling more oil.  If a company can sell more of its products, of course its going to make more money.   And since they are among the largest corporations in the world, of course they are going to have large profits when running at or very near full capacity.   The real culprits behind the huge run up in oil prices not due to just supply and demand are the (1) OPEC members who seem to be believe that $90 a barrel oil is now their God given right and (2) the environmentalists, and their political allies, almost all of the Democrats and a few NE Republicans, and almost all of the press--all of whom keep pushing for alternative fuels but refuse to do one thing to increase the US domestic supply of oil and natural gas that's needed for the next 20-30 years!   Nothing wrong with alternative fuels, although ethanol from corn and other grains in US is turning out to be a disaster for consumers, but you also need to increase the US supply of oil and natural gas if you want to have any clout with OPEC and stop the spiraling prices. 

As I've stated before, I retired from a major university and I can't tell you of the number of academics who have told me that the best thing for the country is $5-6 gallon of gas "so the environment will be cleaner".   The idea that what they want could throw this country into chaos unseen since the 1930's never crosses their mind.  The fact that the "common man" is already hurting, as are most businesses, and would really get clobbered under their scenario also never crosses their mind.  

That's my rant for today. 

 

[al-in-chgo]

DesertXpress quote $3 to $5 billion for their scheme - to build 190 miles of double track 125mph railway!  Sounds far too cheap to me!

That might pay for the initial survey, the IAS, permitting and part of the land acquisition.

The other problem is starting the service at Victorville rather than L.A. Will enough people park their cars at Victorville and take the train to make the venture profitable? 

Once a driver climbs Cajon, the temptation to just keep going will be all but irresistable!  As for reverse traffic (Las Vegas residents wanting to go to LA,) if there isn't a rent-a-car service at Victorville, that simply won't happen - and is very unlikely to happen even if there is a rental counter right in the station.

Surely any venture should be targeting the L.A to Las Vegas airlines? The new Madrid - Barcelona high speed line in Spain is a good example of this.

What seems to be getting overlooked is that Madrid-Barcelona (and London-Paris, and Tokyo-Osaka on the original Shinkansen) will be attracting BUSINESS travelers, not pleasure seekers.  Sin City is NOT a center of commerce.

Also, if anyone expects the Las Vegas casinos to pay any part of the cost of LA-LV rail they're hallucinating.  The big operators would rather spend that money opening 'branch offices' in Macau.

Chuck (Clark County, NV, resident)

 

Chuck, you make an excellent point about those routes in other countries whose HST's thrive and profit by catering to the business set (and I could say that as well of Acela in this country).  And a major reason the business set will pay screechingly high fares to ride first class on Acela (along with the who-cares aspects of some expense accounts), is that a lot of business travel can't be planned, and they have to have the quickest transport to another NEC city Right Away  and d**n the expense.  Call it impulse purchase, impromptu, unplanned or spur-of-the-moment, that's what makes the profits, if the Amtrak accountants allow there's any to be made at all.  

I'm going to suggest that in the medium-to-far future there might be a sustainable or profitable market for an L.A. - N.V. highspeed train.  If such is to occur, I for one would expect the people who pay amazingly high fares, besides wanting a more comfortable seat, expect a higher (for lack of a better term), "exclusive" class of service.  Maybe there could be three classes:  Coach, First Class and Luxury (or "High Roller").  The High Rollers car could be like the Metroliner-and-earlier-vintage parlor cars, swivel chairs two across (everyone gets an aisle seat AND a window seat.  The real draw would be, along with a lot more personal space, plush, and personal attention (waiter service and meal included); for lack of a better term), a dose of Vegas-style "vice" would bring the hard core in.  Maybe there are enough people willing to brush up on their Blackjack before hitting the tables at the casinos that they wouldn't mind the Luxury Car ("house") holding on a soft fifteen.  Cigarettes, mixed drinks and such would be suitably exorbitant, just as they are getting to be in Vegas itself.  Blackjack and Hold'em don't need an awful lot of room.  I'd avoid craps and roulette for sure!     

Two huge hurdles present themselves:  the first, as was so well brought up in earlier posts:  capitalization.  And number two: all but the last roughly sixty miles would be in California, where specific laws against smoking and gambling exist, and even rolling cocktail lounges might have a lot of hoops to jump through before the state licenses them.  (Anyone out there ridden the Amtrak trains that do offer wine or mixed drinks??)  Point being, even people who act like the stereotypical drunken sailor will balk if the indulgences exist only through the last third of the trip -- about 35 mins. at HST speed.   

After those close-to-impossible barriers, real-life objections present themselves.  California is not about to pay to build part of most of an private-capital high-speed line to carry their citizens out of state.  And my guess would be, as expensive as acquisition costs would be, three- and four-laning the Interstate, even the roughly one-third of the line that runs within the state of Nevada, (or building a parallel toll road) would be as naught compared to HST planning, surveying, laying track, buying state-of-the-art trainsets, electrification etc etc etc. 

For this to work our imaginary capitalist would have to get at least some of the "official" Vegas of big casinos, hotels and related services to get on board, pardon the pun.  Up until now that highly specialized city has dealt with the problem of transportation in some classically American ways:  run longer city busses more frequently, buy up old housing or parking lots to buy high-rise parking decks, encourage the rental of cars.  Oh, and next time you really should book that car ahead.   Sadly, IMHO, the powers that be have re-laned Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip) so that it is almost impossible to take a cab for a very short distance: multiple right-turn-only lanes at most intersections force cabbies into the right turn, from which another turn ensues to take the Interstate or a side road, sometimes describing a shoe-box pattern, just to reach the palace "just a couple of buildings down."  But those of us who are slow to acclimate to 105-degree (F) temps (never mind the low humidity) might find those little third-and half-mile taxi rides the only feasible options (watch carefully:  those buses stop at places more useful to the employees than the tourists).  Between 1999 and 2005, by my traveling companion and my lights, the cost of cab fares per mile did not go up all that much, but what used to be a three-dollar fare is now a seven-dollar fare due to all the circling (shoeboxing?) around.  So the short trip with tip cost four bucks less than ten years ago; as of 2005 it was seven or eight (and so easy to let the cabdriver keep a ten) -- in effect more than doubling the price of convenient transportation over short distances -- not to mention overcrowding already-crowded local roads and wasting hydrocarbons in a way that would make even the Exxon tiger blush.

Short of adding diamond lanes for Vegas-bound buses which is probably politically untenable and about as expensive as adding extra lanes on the superhighway, at some point, assuming Vegas grows steadily, I would guess that some sort of rail would come to the fore (the faster the growth, the more acute the need, of cours

[Amtrak77]

The hell with everyone else, just build the *** thing and be done with it.  I live right between the I-210 and the I-15 and seeing this parking lot every weekend is crazy.  If UP, Sante Fe and BNSF has a problem with running high-speed trains pass colton yard, San Bernandino yard and thru the el cajon pass then tell them to come see me!

Expand it to LA! not many people would like to drive to Victorville and besides, the wind blows to much dirt on nice clean cars

Finally, Southwest is afaird of the competetion but hey, at least you can look sexy or wear nice short clothes on a train and not get kicked off for being beatiful

[blue streak 1]

Bet the casinos would wat truly high speed on the UP. Does UP have cab signaling on that line?

[JT22CW]

Your arguements (sic) are so full of holes it would take a book or more to address them

IOW, you can't refute them. Just say so. Claiming that it will "take a book" (which it wouldn't, if there were any arguments that could refute them that is) is a poor copout.

I stand by my statements completely particularly that the government does create wealth it takes it from every producing American

You can stand by it if you wish, but it won't make it true.

The government is not continuously cutting taxes and when they do the revenues increase - every time without exception

If it were true, you'd be able to cite examples off the bat. Instead, you throw rhetoric at me.

Furthermore, our major industries would still be within the USA. Have you gotten confused about what you originally said?

If cutting taxes is so bad how come the current stimulus package will work since they are giving us back our money to spend?

Who says it will work? Most people are going to use it to pay down their debts or put it into savings as a "rainy day" fund, not send money into the "consumer economy". Not to mention, it's mostly borrowed money anyway (or do you pay no attention to the level of public debt the USA is holding?)

All those people ranting about oil company profits seem to forget that the major reason they have increased is the oil companies are simply selling more oil. If a company can sell more of its products, of course its going to make more money. And since they are among the largest corporations in the world, of course they are going to have large profits when running at or very near full capacity.

Nope. If that were the case, then they would not have to raise oil prices, which should be an unrelated factor, never mind retail fuel prices, which various sources claim are due to refining capacity instead of crude oil prices (but retail fuel prices have been rising right along with crude oil prices, hmm-hmm).

The real culprits behind the huge run up in oil prices not due to just supply and demand are the (1) OPEC members who seem to be believe that $90 a barrel oil is now their God given right and (2) the environmentalists, and their political allies, almost all of the Democrats and a few NE Republicans, and almost all of the press--all of whom keep pushing for alternative fuels but refuse to do one thing to increase the US domestic supply of oil and natural gas that's needed for the next 20-30 years! Nothing wrong with alternative fuels, although ethanol from corn and other grains in US is turning out to be a disaster for consumers, but you also need to increase the US supply of oil and natural gas if you want to have any clout with OPEC and stop the spiraling prices

Um, not exactly.

OPEC is indeed a valid factor to cite when it comes to the price of oil (remember what they did all the way back in 1973), but that is due to their being stingy with the oil supply, not selling more of it. The only "clout" that OPEC deserves is a military one, right across their collective faces.

OPEC is not the only danger when it comes to energy supply. Russia has become a major player of late, and Putin has recently nationalized the industries thereof.

Would it not serve the environmental lobby poorly to increase the profits of oil companies? You're claiming that this lobby is being a boon to Exxon-Mobil and the rest of them, never mind OPEC. I don't see a logical connection. The oil lobby is far more dangerous to the US economy than the environmental one.

As I've stated before, I retired from a major university and I can't tell you of the number of academics who have told me that the best thing for the country is $5-6 gallon of gas "so the environment will be cleaner". The idea that what they want could throw this country into chaos unseen since the 1930's never crosses their mind. The fact that the "common man" is already hurting, as are most businesses, and would really get clobbered under their scenario also never crosses their mind

Like these "academics" are the source of this? How many of them are US representatives or senators?

The "common man" is "hurting" due to the status quo, not due to policies that such academics had nothing to do with.

I suspect your "academics" were pointing to Europe, which is not a good example of a cleaner environment, but are far less oil-dependent for transportation in their larger countries. European countries have made do quite will with retail motor fuel prices at the $4-5/US gallon level for decades (yes, decades) and are currently tackling retail prices around $8 per US gallon.

And "chaos unseen since the 1930s" may indeed be fomented in the USA due to far different policies unrelated to transportation, policies that loudmouth academics, again, have had absolutely nothing to do with.

Anyway...as far as the LA-LV trains go, this ought to be a given. Greyhound certainly has no problems selling their "Lucky Streak" bus service between the two cities, which has twelve daily departures (and takes over six hours one-way). There is also Lux Bus America. Not to mention the 69 or so flight options between the two cities, not all of which are nonstop. To even insinuate that Amtrak cannot compete with a frequent service against all of this (or, to be more fair, complement all of this high demand service) by adding a track to the UP's main line has very low merit, if any merit at all.

[spectratone]

The hell with everyone else, just build the *** thing and be done with it.  I live right between the I-210 and the I-15 and seeing this parking lot every weekend is crazy.  If UP, Sante Fe and BNSF has a problem with running high-speed trains pass colton yard, San Bernandino yard and thru the el cajon pass then tell them to come see me!

Expand it to LA! not many people would like to drive to Victorville and besides, the wind blows to much dirt on nice clean cars

Finally, Southwest is afaird of the competetion but hey, at least you can look sexy or wear nice short clothes on a train and not get kicked off for being beatiful

I,m with you, build it. Stop in victorville and pick me up. how many lanes wide is that 15 going over the hill? And on the weekend it's bumper to bumper. lets all pitch in and rent a billboard on the 15 that says, next time take the train!  And put amtraks phone number on the bottom!!

[oltmannd]

DesertXpress quote $3 to $5 billion for their scheme - to build 190 miles of double track 125mph railway!  Sounds far too cheap to me!

That might pay for the initial survey, the IAS, permitting and part of the land acquisition.

The other problem is starting the service at Victorville rather than L.A. Will enough people park their cars at Victorville and take the train to make the venture profitable? 

Once a driver climbs Cajon, the temptation to just keep going will be all but irresistable!  As for reverse traffic (Las Vegas residents wanting to go to LA,) if there isn't a rent-a-car service at Victorville, that simply won't happen - and is very unlikely to happen even if there is a rental counter right in the station.

Surely any venture should be targeting the L.A to Las Vegas airlines? The new Madrid - Barcelona high speed line in Spain is a good example of this.

What seems to be getting overlooked is that Madrid-Barcelona (and London-Paris, and Tokyo-Osaka on the original Shinkansen) will be attracting BUSINESS travelers, not pleasure seekers.  Sin City is NOT a center of commerce.

Also, if anyone expects the Las Vegas casinos to pay any part of the cost of LA-LV rail they're hallucinating.  The big operators would rather spend that money opening 'branch offices' in Macau.

Chuck (Clark County, NV, resident)

I dunno.  The same "big operators" are springing for all the costs of new NY - AC service...

[spectratone]

I have another question. How wide is the railroad right of way? 100 feet wide? 200? Why would envirementalist fight to stop a project that would reduce fuel consumption and pollution and increase safety in a 200 mile stretch of land 200 feet wide that you can look left or right and see for hundreds of miles with NOTHING on it?

[diningcar]

Do they need a reason?

With our taxpayer money they pay attorneys to protest any issue. And the attorneys are always ready to take the money.

[blue streak 1]

ROW width is a good question. I suspect it is diffeerent amounts and the width of buildings from the ROW is Vegas might give a clue. Those places where geometry would not allow  high speeds and require a new ROW woould be subject to more stringent enviromental rules.