While reading the news this morning found the following article referencing HSR to Las Vegas from a Park&Ride facility approx 100 miles from Los Angeles(?). Another tale of a project that will cost probably more than the current estimates. [Story linked below]
http://www.businessinsider.com/bullet-train-from-las-vegas-to-nowhere-2012-3
"Now Obama Wants To Build A $5 Billion Bullet Train From Las Vegas To Nowhere" by Michael Blood Mar 245,2012 (4:14PM)
FTA:"VICTORVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- On a dusty, rock-strewn expanse at the edge of the Mojave Desert, a company linked to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to build a bullet train that would rocket tourists from the middle of nowhere to the gambling palaces of Las Vegas..."
FTA:"...Yet even as the Federal Railroad Administration considers awarding what would be, by far, the largest loan of its type, its own research warns it's difficult to predict how many people will ride the train, a critical measure of financial survival, an Associated Press review found."
"There are other skeptics, as well."
"It's insanity," says Thomas Finkbiner of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver. "People won't drive to a train to go someplace. If you are going to drive, why not drive all the way and leave when you want?..."
link: http://www.businessinsider.com/bullet-train-from-las-vegas-to-nowhere-2012-3
IMHO it is a tale of political power moves, and a grab for the Public Purse. But an interesting article nevertheless, in the Story of American HSR.
As was noted in another thread, this proposal does not serve the most difficult part of the drive anyway.
For those of you not familiar with the area, the first 80-100 miles of the L.A.-Las Vegas run are almost always the toughest. Metropolitan traffic and then crossing 4,000-foot-plus Cajon Pass both precede your arrival in Victorville. The former is legendary, of course, and the latter is occasionally a big challenge for us mostly snow-averse people here.
If it were to be built using only private investors' money, I'd have no problem with the attempt. But apparently it's going to be a tax-subsidized plan to get more gamblers to bring their bets to the home state of guess-who.
It's just what we need here. (sarcasm added)
All,
According to the cited article, the proponents are looking for an RRIF loan. If the DOT applies their usual standards to this project they will not participate.
Proponents are planning 2.5 million passengers per year at $100 per head. That is a gross revenue of $250 million. That is not even close to being enough to service the debt on low range cost of $5 billion even if there were NO operating costs, which of course there will be.
Of course if FRA puts up your money to help re-elect Ried and Obama, they we will have a railroad version of Solyndra and our other "green energy" fiascos.
Time to place your bets on the rationallity/irrationallity of DOT bureaucrats! Just remember, it is your money not theirs. Popcorn extra.
Mac McCulloch
What a stinkeroo, a raid on the public treasury for naked political purposes that has NO CHANCE of succeeding. This will be a good test of what the FRA is made of.
At least the story is apparently getting plenty of ink. It was in our (Bismarck) paper this morning.
Before you get so caught up in rhetoric, it should be noted that Victorville is a current stop on the route (BNSF) of the SW Chief, about 120 miles and 4 hours from LA Union Station. So whatever service there will be to Victorville from Las Vegas, could/would easily continue on to LA, hopefully at better than the current 30mph average. Hardly a train to nowhere!
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Schlimm, do you anticipate that BNSF would be on board with increasing passenger frequencies Victorville-LA? (The Chief isn't going to take care of all those Xpresses running on 20-minute heads.)
dakotafred Schlimm, do you anticipate that BNSF would be on board with increasing passenger frequencies Victorville-LA? (The Chief isn't going to take care of all those Xpresses running on 20-minute heads.)
Well put. If the BNSF is opposed to just one Amtrak train per day, each way, on the Transcon across Texas instead of in Raton Pass, we can be sure that it doesn't want to turn Cajon into a commuter route. The company just got done spending megabucks for a third track to accomodate more freight on the line, and surely anticipates that it will be needed for that purpose.
Let's see private investors do this with their own money (not OPM). Then I'll believe that it might become a winner.
I have no idea whether or not additional capacity could be built into the RoW. I was simply pointing out the facts of where Victorville is in relation to an existing Amtrak route, something that the article, in its journalistic hysteria completely avoided mentioning (as did you).
This kind of money could fund the Amtrak system for 5 plus years or buy 500 Brand New Superliners cars, also could fund Raton Pass line.
May I stop laughing now???
These Desert Xpress clowns have been busily promoting their scheme for a number of years now. If the Las Vegas casino owners thought it would be useful, they would have been lining up in droves, checkbooks in hand. The fact that they haven't been tells this Las Vegas Valley resident that the whole scheme will probably go the way of other desert mirages.
I watch the local news channels. Total air time given to Desert Xpress over the last three years has been about ten minutes - maybe. The Megamillion Lottery has gotten more coverage than that in the last two days - and Nevada doesn't even have an authorized sales location.
Chuck (Clark County, NV, resident)
Given the amount of vacant land in Vegas, I would think those big money Vegas casino owners have their own problems. They were lucky to get city center built.
As a former resident of southern california, I believe there is a market for a train from LA Union to Las Vegas on a reasonably fast timetable. I don't know that it needs to be HSR. If the intention is to build a new ROW from Victorville to Vegas and then use BNSF/UP to get to LA, then I say good luck, it could work I guess.
Personally, I'd just try to fund double tracking the UP line from Barstow and working with BNSF on whatever capacity improvements could be done through Cajon and into LA and see if you can get the flat parts rated for 110MPH. Or maybe try and use the Palmdale cutoff for a route out of LA and then new track across the desert.
I honestly do think this is a viable city pair if the service is fast enough. It's just a matter of finding the capacity.
The (ahem) smart thing to do is to pair up with the Cal HSR authority for a reasonably high speed link between the high desert and metropolitan LA. I won't be holding my breath waiting for either to be built, Vegas is hurting big time and it will be years before the Cal state government finances are healthy enough to fund HSR.
- Erik
Erik,
Or, imagine this unthinkable thought, the California Legislature did something smart and allowed casino gambling in California. Vegas and Reno dry up and blow away, all that tax money stays in the used to be Golden state, and no one would even think there was a need for this gambler's express. What could be greener than to eliminate all the fossil fuel consumption involved in hauling people from California to the Neveda desert to pour their money out on the sand?
Mac
Erik, as I said in the other thread, I suspect that that was actually the plan.
Also, if we're talking about what California should logically do, they should logically work to destroy the city of LA. It is untenable. It imports water from a source that cannot support it, not because of global warming or anything, but because it's historical flow rate is significantly less than it's 20th century flow rate.
Also, California does allow gambling. I have a very nice casino just a few miles down from my house in Roseville. Of course, even if Cali allowed gambling on the scale of Nevada, Reno and Carson City wouldn't dry up (Vegas would), because the World's oldest profession would still be there and be legal.
Reno and Carson City are pretty dry and both look drier than the the mid 1960's when I lived in CC for two years. I can also say from personal experience that there is a lot of auto traffic to/from Vegas in the weekends - got stuck in a Sunday afternoon traffic jam that stretched from Vegas to Barstow on my way back from Montana. Riding at typical Amtrak speeds would be more relaxing than that experience.
Long term water prospects for coastal California may be pretty good - reverse osmosis membranes have advanced to the point that it takes less energy to desalinate seawater than to pump water from the Colorado river to the LA basin.
I also would be very surprised if the Desert Xpress and Cal HSR forces hadn't thought of consolidating their high desert to LA trackage. That line would also make for a great commuter rail connection between those areas.
Exactly.
I remember making the mistake of deciding to railfan Cajon on a sunday afternoon when I lived down in Carlsbad.
There were people using the blue cut portion of old US66 to bypass around a couple miles of stopped traffic.
People who don't think there is a market for a train from the LA basin to Vegas clearly have never actually tried to us I15 on a weekend.
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