America's Most Exciting High Speed Rail Project Gets $3 Billion Grant From Feds (vice.com) 99
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A high-speed train from the greater Los Angeles area to Las Vegas took a big step closer to reality thanks to a $3 billion federal grant from the Department of Transportation and Joe Biden's signature infrastructure law. The proposed line will be built by Brightline West, a private company owned by Fortress Investment Group. It promises to use all-electric high-speed trains that can travel up to 180 mph, which will half the travel time from Los Angeles to Las Vegas without even taking into account the terrible traffic during peak travel times. The one catch is the LA station will be in Rancho Cucamonga, about 45 miles from Union Station (it is, however, connected via Metrolink trains). The Las Vegas station is more centrally located close to the airport. [...]
Brightline West may be the flashiest rail project in the U.S. at the moment, but it's hardly alone. The U.S. is experiencing a modest but real resurgence in rail expansion thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In addition to Brightline West, a Raleigh-to-Richmond rail corridor received a $1 billion grant to be fit for reliable passenger service, a major boon to a region with good bones for passenger service and high demand that has become neglected and dominated by freight rail. North Carolina is experiencing record passenger rail ridership thanks to more service between Raleigh and Charlotte, two metro areas that have experienced massive population booms in recent decades and desperately need better rail service. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act is also providing tens of billions of dollars in funding to upgrade Northeast Corridor infrastructure between Washington D.C. and Boston, the nation's busiest rail route. The other California High Speed rail route, the one that a state authority has been trying to build for decades that will only go from Bakersfield to Merced, also received $3 billion in federal funding.
Brightline West may be the flashiest rail project in the U.S. at the moment, but it's hardly alone. The U.S. is experiencing a modest but real resurgence in rail expansion thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In addition to Brightline West, a Raleigh-to-Richmond rail corridor received a $1 billion grant to be fit for reliable passenger service, a major boon to a region with good bones for passenger service and high demand that has become neglected and dominated by freight rail. North Carolina is experiencing record passenger rail ridership thanks to more service between Raleigh and Charlotte, two metro areas that have experienced massive population booms in recent decades and desperately need better rail service. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act is also providing tens of billions of dollars in funding to upgrade Northeast Corridor infrastructure between Washington D.C. and Boston, the nation's busiest rail route. The other California High Speed rail route, the one that a state authority has been trying to build for decades that will only go from Bakersfield to Merced, also received $3 billion in federal funding.
The return trip ... (Score:3)
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That is why they have Greyhound bus
Why exciting? (Score:2)
This rail line will only benefit tourists and the businesses that rely on them. If you're a Vegas high roller living in LA, you might like it. Otherwise, not so much.
Re:Why exciting? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not like it used to be. There's much more to Las Vegas than just gambling. For one thing, they just got a new Raiders stadium near the Strip.
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It's not like it used to be. There's much more to Las Vegas than just gambling. For one thing, they just got a new Raiders stadium near the Strip.
You're right that Vegas isn't what it used to be. No free parking, everyone expecting massive tips, resort fees everywhere and resort fees have become extortionate at that. It's not a cheap destination any more.
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oh boy. sportsball. Which you can never find in El Lay.
Vegas IMHO would be a perfect target for tests of tactical nukes.
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Re:Why exciting? (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that flying fucking sucks. Fight your way through traffic to get to the airport, in order to get raped for parking. Then sit around for 2 hours while getting the "colonoscopy-lite" treatment from TSA and waiting for the aircraft crew to actually show up so you can board. Then sit on the airplane amongst the least considerate people on the planet that are all clustered around you for the 75 minute flight time, and pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege, to arrive at McCarran Airport in Vegas (where the HSR station is going to be, according to TFS). This will cost you $88 one-way according to the google search I just did, if you don't want to get stacked in the airplane like firewood (Spirit).
If they can keep the ticket cost down, they have a real shot at making a useful service here. You can get to the HSR station in the LA area (inland empire, really) via MetroLink (not paying airport parking), and then walk onto the train with no security hassle or bullshit bag checking fees or other random fees meant to extract the money they didn't get on the ticket price, where you have far more legroom than practically any commercial aircraft while you blast down the I-15 corridor at 2x the speed of freeway traffic. And upon arrival in Vegas, you can get into one of Elon's weird "Tunnel Teslas" to go wherever the fuck you're going without having to wait on a baggage claim, etc.
Obviously all of this depends on the contractor who is building it to not cake their pants or cause cost overruns that doom the project before a single passenger rides it, which isn't a given. But if they do it right, and it becomes somewhat successful, it could prove that this kind of thing makes sense to connect various cities, which would reduce the amount of air traffic and freeway traffic, which means less airport and freeway expansions.
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Think about it........Just for one second........ Do you believe that exactly one terrorist action on a high speed train will not bring about all the crap we have to put up with while flying? Don't be naive.
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Terrorists wouldn't need planes or fancy training, just a chunk of metal
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Assuming this $3 billion boondoggle ...
It's not a $3 billion boondoggle.
It's a $12 billion boondoggle. $3B is only the portion being funded by the Feds.
The rule of thumb for public infrastructure projects is that the initial budget is a third of the real price, lowballed to get the project started, so it can then continue under the sunk cost fallacy.
So the final price tag will likely be about $36 billion.
Re:Why exciting? (Score:4, Interesting)
There was a recent Megaprojects video on why the UK is so crap at doing infrastructure projects, and many of the findings probably apply to the US as well.
For one thing, the UK doesn't do enough of them. The management skills are not built up or retained, and the contractors aren't reasonably certain of future work even if they do a good job.
As an example, the UK spent around £250 million studying the possibility of building a new tunnel under the Themes river, before deciding not to do it. Norway spent less than half that actually building a much longer tunnel under an inland body of water, because such projects are fairly routine there.
There was also a lot of political BS, like local politicians demanding that the air vents for the tunnels be disguised so as not to "ruin" the landscape. That required building fake barns over them, at considerable expense, and adding more delay to the project. For stuff like that we should probably just tell them to sod off, and if it turns out to be really that bad in the end we can decorate them later.
That said, $36 billion seems like a bargain compared to our HS2 line. But also quite expensive compared to what it costs Japan to build new lines, and Japan isn't easy terrain or known for cheap labour and lax standards.
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Do you believe that exactly one terrorist action on a high speed train will not bring about all the crap we have to put up with while flying?
There has been a terrorist action already, in 2015 [wikipedia.org]. Former high school classmates Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, and Spencer Stone were made Knights of the Legion of Honour for their part in subduing the attacker.
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Think about it.........Just for one second......... If that was a tempting thing to do at all, don't you think it probably would have happened in Europe by now, where they have high speed rail already deployed in multiple countries, including a tempting undersea tunnel that would not react well to an explosive device?
Re:Why exciting? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a constant tension in the air industry between shoveling passengers into hub airports on giant wide body aircraft and flying them point to point on modest sized aircraft.
*Of course* flying point to point is what everyone would prefer, so why don't they do that? Because there's just not enough landing slots for everyone to fly that way; and certainly this will get worse as more and more people fly. This is why Emirates flies gigantic airplanes like A380s; there's not enough landing slots to get all the passengers they need to carry in and out of Dubai on medium sized planes.
If you expect the volume of air travel to increase, you're going to have to increase the size of planes and airports to accomodate that -- possibly build additional airports where existing ones can't be expanded. An efficient and well-designed intermodal link to the LA metro area by rail at Las Vegas could make a lot of sense and maybe avert having to build another airport.
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I'm not sure they can increase the size of aircraft. The A380 was so big that it required special extra large berths, and most airports either couldn't accommodate them or didn't want to.
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The A380 requires a code F sized box at the gate, same as the 747. The A380 needed reinforced tarmac, though, since it is quite heavy.
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"there's just not enough landing slots for everyone to fly that way"
In the US for example only 3 airports have actual slots, and there are only specific times of day when they are really slot constrained. There's definitely no constraints in Dubai which has a whole other airport whose expansion is stalled because they don't actually need it.
The real bound is that the major cost of a flight in getting the airframe off the ground. As revenue is largely a function of distance you maximize your return on capita
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Yeah, if you think the final ticket price will be 88 dollars I have some bottom land in Florida to sell you.
Re:Why exciting? (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually like riding on trains, but I'd be happy if I never stepped foot in an airport again. Once Americans get a taste of what it's like to travel on modern trains, ticket price practically won't matter.
For a Vegas train, you won't be waiting until you get to Vegas to start the party. The party's gonna start when you get on the train. Siemens is already advertising a special trainset with a new party car for this route..."Party at high speed" https://www.mobility.siemens.com/us/en/portfolio/rail/rolling-stock/high-speed-and-intercity-trains/american-pioneer-220.html
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I actually like riding on trains, but I'd be happy if I never stepped foot in an airport again. Once Americans get a taste of what it's like to travel on modern trains, ticket price practically won't matter.
You've obviously not been on a flight to Mexico or Vegas. You know it's gonna be a fun flight when your neighbors crack open a bottle. Of course it's been a while for me, maybe they crack down on this stuff now. Used to be the stewardess' would look the other way. MGM Grand Air was nothing but a party back in the 80s and I also vaguely remember going upstairs to the lounge on a flight to Hawaii way back in the day (70s I think), that seemed like a pretty good party too.
The reason what happened to airlines w
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You know it's gonna be a fun flight when your neighbors crack open a bottle.
Federal law prohibits bringing alcohol onto airplanes.
Used to be the stewardess' would look the other way.
Yeah, it's been a long time since you've flown. They're called "flight attendants" now, lots of them have hairy knuckles (and some are men), and they do not look the other way.
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Federal law prohibits bringing alcohol onto airplanes.
If you think laws keep people from doing things: Welcome to America! I hope you enjoy your stay.
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I actually like riding on trains, but I'd be happy if I never stepped foot in an airport again. Once Americans get a taste of what it's like to travel on modern trains, ticket price practically won't matter.
Nah. If rail travel in the US ever gets popular we'll implement all of the same rigamarole and security theater we have in airports, ensuring that train travel sucks just as much. The airlines will lobby for it.
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"You can get to the HSR station in the LA area (inland empire, really) via MetroLink"
A Shin-Angeles station sounds clever until you realize that there's only 3 regional trains per hour in the peak direction on MetroLink. That's about half the frequency of just the Nozomi departures at Shin-Osaka, plus it's only 2 miles from Osaka station.
You can't just assume that the regional network will expand; you actually have to expand it too.
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$3 billion is dirt cheap. How many tens of billions of dollars do you think it would cost taxpayers to add another runway to LAX?
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There is ZERO reason to add another runway at LAX. There are things called jumbo jets. You need more capacity add an aircraft, not at government expense mind you, that is twice as large. There is zero reason why a 787 cannot be used instead of a 737.
Need even more capacity? Let's see, there are things called regional airports. Long Beach, Burbank, John Wayne, Riverside, to name a a few are well within a much shorter car ride than having to make one's way all the way to LAX or a centralized HSR station.
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That assumes all the existing runways can handle larger planes - probably true for LAX, I'm not going to research it.
But you can't just dock a jumbo jet at a gate designed for a regional jet. Switching to larger aircraft would require lots of changes to the a
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$3 billion is dirt cheap.
$3B is NOT the price. It is only the size of the federal grant.
The proposed price is $12B. The rest will be paid by California, Nevada, and private investors.
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You do know that there are instantly-sold-out concerts, sporting events, and various conventions that also happen in Las Vegas, yes?
Just one Taylor Swift concert night would probably drag 100k people to town, and she'd doing multiple nights in most of her locations because of the vastly expensive stage and equipment setup. Having electrified high-speed rail between the second largest metro area in the country and the concert venue would probably save many tons of CO2 emissions for that one night alone.
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If you want to get me excited by rail (Score:3)
Treat the cars like data packets and build a switched network or modern pneumatic tube system.
When I reach a hub, if necessary have my car automatically moved to another train. If a hub is congested on a long trip, route around it.
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It's much easier to just have passengers walk between cars. Think about it, you would have to have allocated seating to ensure people are on the right car, no urban commuter style trains where you just sit where you like.
Trains actually work really well when combined with busses. If you look at how Japan does it, most train stations have a bus terminal and taxi rank attached to them. Everything is coordinated so you get off the train and onto your bus, and because it's the terminal the busses are not usuall
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It takes organization to get people on the correct train, too.
Switching at the car level would require a lot of thought to be sure, but it offers a lot of potential efficiencies. Plus (at least for me) there's a 'cool factor'.
Secondary (Score:1)
This is $3 billion of the entire country's money being spent so people in LA can travel to Las Vegas to gamble.
If California and Nevada want to build a train that only serves LA and Las Vegas they can pay for it themselves.
Re:Secondary (Score:5, Insightful)
This is $3 billion of the entire country's money being spent so people in LA can travel to Las Vegas to gamble.
If California and Nevada want to build a train that only serves LA and Las Vegas they can pay for it themselves.
Yeah, while I generally like the idea of fast trains on direct, short routes between big cities that naturally have lots of traffic (and thus, can pay for itself), Vegas has only one business, and in this case, Washington DC is basically subsidizing casinos. If there's a business that has no business being subsidized, it's casino gambling.
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This is $3 billion of the entire country's money being spent so people in LA can travel to Las Vegas to gamble.
If California and Nevada want to build a train that only serves LA and Las Vegas they can pay for it themselves.
Yeah, while I generally like the idea of fast trains on direct, short routes between big cities that naturally have lots of traffic (and thus, can pay for itself), Vegas has only one business, and in this case, Washington DC is basically subsidizing casinos. If there's a business that has no business being subsidized, it's casino gambling.
LA has LOTS of high-wealth individuals. Not the wealthiest, but the Hollywood elite are hardly middle class. And they want help getting somewhere to throw that cash around. How dare you question our modern royalty!
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This is $3 billion of the entire country's money being spent so people in LA can travel to Las Vegas to gamble.
If California and Nevada want to build a train that only serves LA and Las Vegas they can pay for it themselves.
Yeah, while I generally like the idea of fast trains on direct, short routes between big cities that naturally have lots of traffic (and thus, can pay for itself), Vegas has only one business, and in this case, Washington DC is basically subsidizing casinos. If there's a business that has no business being subsidized, it's casino gambling.
Las Vegas has more than just gambling, including sports, shows, and the non-gambling strip experience. The real reason for a $3 HSR line is the effect on the I-15 traffic. How much money would have to be spent to build new highways or highway lanes that would quickly adjust to be congested again?
Of all HSR lines, east LA valley to Las Vegas is one of the more favorable ones. Most of the land for the rails already exists with relatively minimal land rights issues.
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Vegas is a travel thoroughfare (Score:3)
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That is one of your more ridiculous copes.
"We're building this because this will be an important hub for a cross country rail system that I've ENTIRELY imagined in my head!"
Again: the point is that the people that NEED it NOW can pay for it NOW. It's a (very) high traffic corridor. Not everything needs to be paid for by the federal government vomiting forth money that they've harvested from the other 48 states.
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Infrastructure is a better investment than propping up failing red states. https://www.kentucky.com/news/... [kentucky.com]
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The interest rate is 4.2% right now, so I'm more than OK with it. At that rate I'd take as much as they can give me.
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If it makes you feel any better, based on several previous attempts to build a high speed rail between LA and LV, odds are pretty heavy that not a single rail will be laid, and not a single shovelful of dirt will dug up.
This is the Democratic Party paying off union members to vote for them next year, just like the last time, and the time before, and so on.
Business as usual, and make no mistake, politics and vote buying in California is a business.
Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
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That is enough money for an environmental impact study!
Jokes aside, I suspect the big issue is going to be some dirt farmer who owns a patch of dust out the back of Baker who refuses to sell up because he won't let the gubbermint tell him what to do.
It should have been paid by CA and NV (Score:2)
They're the only ones to benefit. Besides, CA has received billions to build high-speed rail to connect SF to LA and after a decade of "work" they are still struggling to get a training running in the San Joaquin Valley, a huge, relatively desolate and flat farming area of the state. They should kill the SF-LA plan and go for LA-LV which should have more riders than a LA-SF link. If LA-LV works, they can use the proceeds for the next rail project.
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Re: It should have been paid by CA and NV (Score:2)
Fuck states, serve citizens.
Guess where most of them live?
Re: It should have been paid by CA and NV (Score:2)
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Sure, as long as you stop taxing us and using the money to fund flyover states
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Re: It should have been paid by CA and NV (Score:2)
Why? I don't want it either. Make Rancho Cucamonga pay for it.
By a private company? (Score:1)
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TLDR, is OWNED by a private company? Or just BUILT by a private company? Because as far as I know, there aren't any government agencies in the US that specialize in building HSR.
Re: By a private company? (Score:1)
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Why do $3 billion of the people's money go to a private company? What do we get for the? The ability to ride it? That doesn't seem any better than a government built railway. At least it would be owned by the people who paid for it.
Will it ever be built? This is likely $3bn of future C-suite bonuses. And we'll be tossing another 3bn on the pile in a few years when we're no further along than we are today on the actual rail.
Hey, the telcos and their constant need for more government money to build out high speed access that never gets built is a great prototype for milking money from the government. This is another great example of that premise.
Re: By a private company? (Score:1)
Commuter rail. (Score:1)
More boondoggle pork!
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Yay! 3 billion more stolen from us,
If you think taxes are theft then why don't you live in a country that doesn't collect them?
Do it like you mean it (Score:2)
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People who fly to them?
I can't tell if that was a serious question.
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In many cases, it's feasible to walk from the train station to the hotel, office, home, etc.,
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By that measure, there are no intercity flights!
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> to an airport (outside a city).
*most* of what is generally called "Las Vegas" is actually outside the city, in county. Including the entire "Las Vegas Strip".
The western boundary of the airport is, in fact, Las Vegas Blvd, from Tropicana at the north to Sunset at the south. The other side of the street is (*gasp*) strip resorts.
So for Las Vegas, the airport is a central enough location to which planes and local busses connect, with a huge uber/lyft transfer center.
OK, that idiotic monorail doesn't go
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The Las Vegas airport is right in the middle of the city center.
I agree the Los Angles side needs to be better connected though.
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The LA to Vegas is a bad joke (Score:2)
Spent most my life in L.A. and left after I retired because of all the traffic making was used to ten, fifteen minutes drives to an hour or more. So a rail system that you still have to drive all the way across town to get to a Metro station to take you out to the new rail station is a joke. From where I lived I could just drive to LAX in a half hour and catch a jet to Vegas about a 40 minute flight.
The thing basically should of gone South from Sacramento to San Francisco down to Los Angeles on to Oran
Exciting??? (Score:2)
Seems like the most uninteresting route possible
LA to SF is exciting
SD to LA to SF to Portland to Seattle is really exciting
What happened? (Score:2)
The other Koch brother died too?
Will not work in the US (Score:3)
You should note that all American infrastructure is built to be either a) extremely durable (our buildings and bridges) or b) inaccessible to florida men (we shoot them if they drive out onto the airport tarmac). Anything less gets wrecked by our own population. HS trains are a bad combination of fragile and accessible.
I love the idea but it’s simply not suited to our culture.
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"a single pickup truck filled with bricks"
That's merely a complicated means of rapidly disassembling a pickup truck.
Idiotic (Score:2)
Having the LA station 45 miles (= ~72km) outside of town? Are they deliberately setting this up to fail? I can't tell if it's malice or incompetence.
Video Analysis (Score:2)
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Dude? That video is like 19 minutes long!
Who has that kind of time?
For crying out lound 19 minutes is almost long enough to go one mile on I-5 during rush hour.
Monorail. Monorail! Monorail! (Score:1)
Expansion plans? (Score:2)
"Speeds up to 180mph" - what would be the AVERAGE speed over that distance? In comparison 180mph is about the average speed of the TGV rail network in France.
Is this really a point-to-point connection, or is the rail connecting to rail network at the ends? E.g. TGV can run on slower speeds on standard tracks, so that it can serve the old city centers (where HSR track building might be a probl
Re: Expansion plans? (Score:3)
Average speed is just over 100 mph:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
It also says the average journey time will be 2h10, which compares with 3h30 by road (according to Google).
Simple math says this is stupid. (Score:2)
Las Vegas' maximum number of visitors from everywhere in the world was 42 million just before the pandemic. Somehow, this project estimates that 50 million people travel from Los Angeles to Las Vegas every year. Their numbers are a just a bit off. A reasonable estimate is around 4 million. A very generous estimate is that half would use this rail route.
This is a $12 billion project receiving $3 billion in grants. To break even in 20 years would require 2 million people per year to pay $300 each for a round
Genius (Score:2)
I'd take the train but... (Score:3)
I'd take the train in NC but the problem is unless someone is picking you up from the station you'll be stuck. They don't have car rentals near the stations so you'd have to hire a cab/uber to get anywhere and if you want to explore the area that isn't going to work. If I was just going to a hotel then to a work meeting it wouldn't be that bad but I'm sightseeing. The stations also tend to be in rough parts of the cities and not exactly appealing to walk from.
Cruise-line pricing (Score:2)
Now, if Amtrak would stop pricing long-distance as though it were a cruise ship, rather than transportation....
And bring back sleepers.
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private (Score:2)
This is the so-called "privately funded non-government" project.