Las Vegas is a classic case of, "You can't get there from here." (From my point of view, it's, "You can't get here from there.") Even rubber-wheelers have a long run out of the way of a direct route, thanks to a little item known as the Grand Canyon. In this part of the world, you can't just draw a straight line on a map and say, "Build it."
I'll happily grant that a lot of people want to visit Las Vegas. By air, they fly almost straight here. By road, you get to see miles and miles of some of the planet's most desolate scenery. By rail, if it was still possible, you would see the same miles and miles - but at lower speed.
As for the much-touted HSR from a park-and-ride at the top of Cajon Pass to Las Vegas...ROFLMAO!!!
Chuck (Clark County, NV, resident)
Also, consider how you reach Las Vegas by rail: by way of Salt Lake City or by way of Los Angeles (if you stay on the UP west of Fort Worth) or Barstow (if you take the BNSF west from Fort Worth). Such routing may be worse than that of a through sleeper between West Yellowstone and Jacksonville, which was operated without any geographical backtracking, one summer 80-90 years ago.
I'm sorry, but passengers would have to really want to go by train to travel such a route.
Johnny
One reason is that Texas is paying for the service through Texas and Amtrak needs the Eagle to provide a sufficient load for the Sunset Limited.....
With LAs vegas being a very popular tourist dsetination in America, why doesn't amtrak have two trains, one from Chicago, and one from Jacksonville, join forces in Ft Worth, and termiante in Las Vegas?
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