N830MH

http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/oc...utmk=212710295

They approval from Federal Government. They getting new high-speed rail corridor from LAS to Southern California. Hopefully they will start construction sometime next year.

JerryFF

I have not seen the proposed route, but hopefully it will parallel the I-10 corridor and generate a lot of "local" traffic before getting out of the LA Basin. Otherwise, they will be missing a great opportunity to alleviate congestion along one of the busiest routes in S Calif.

Wally Bird

The route goes from LV to Victorville, not LA at all !, although an extension to Palmdale (also not LA) is projected.

Looks like the usual US stupid approach to railroads. The worst part of the LA-LV drive is the bit before you get to Victorville . After that you just dial in the cruise control and crank up the a/c. Dumb or what ?

KoKoBuddy

If you thought the Big Dig was a complete cluster, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Let's build a train to Las Vegas. But to get to the train you have to drive an hour plus from LA to get to it. On a Friday night - when most people from LA go to LV - 2 hours. A much better option that flying, indeed.

Only the twisted mind of a govt bureaucrat could come up with such an idiotic approach.

KoKoBuddy

There's already a commuter train that more or less parallels I-10 all the way out to San Bernandino.

JerryFF

Good to know - however, it doesn't sound as if it will connect with this new hi-speed rail. So it won't be much help getting from LA to LV. And if it is a commuter train, it is probably pretty slow.

KoKoBuddy

What a shock!!!

The project is already $50B over budget. And the first piece of dirt hasn't even been moved yet.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_19233576

darthbimmer

I'm in favor of HSR in concept. LA/Vegas is a high traffic route, with clogged roads and airports at peak times driving up costs and travel times, so it's a good fit for fast rail. But ending the line in Victorville, a suburb on the very fringe of the LA metro? That's going to kill any potential for ridership and render this project an expensive boondoggle.

Of course, going all the way to the LA basin would be drastically more expensive. Land costs skyrocket, as would construction costs in building around or through the Angels Crest mountains.

Wally Bird

Different project - that's the San Joaquin corridor one.
While I'm sure there are people who commute from Victorville, it's not a suburb of LA by any definition.

As mentioned there is existing passenger rail from Union Station to San Bernadino, but the big obstacle thereafter is Cajon pass which is running at full capacity already with freight (and Amtrak). Upgrading that or adding a new line would be prohibitively expensive and take a very long time.

The routing via Palmdale seems odd at first, but there is spare capacity from there to LA. Whether the line could handle a HST all the way downtown I don't know. Both projects seem a patchwork approach; if HSR is to be a serious endeavor the US is going to have to bite the bullet in massive development like the French TGV. I don't see it happening until the oil runs out. Maybe not even then.

JerryFF

If we constantly say things are too expensive, then nothing will ever get done. People in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties thought that BART was too expensive. Now that people see the value of having more BART lines, the cost is 10 times or more higher than it would have been if done originally.

The same is true of high speed rail lines. How much did it cost to run the Japan Shinkansen from the center of Tokyo through Tokyo suburbs like Yokohama? But it was done and now people cannot imagine not having it.

It is a matter of priorities.

RatherBeOnATrain

There is existing passenger-rail track from LA out to Victorville, it is just not "high speed rail" track. PAX can get on the train at LA 's Union Station, from which it will run at 80 mph out to Victorville (on the existing track), then switch onto the high-speed track and run the rest of the way (Victorville to LV) at 185. Even with the slower-speed track from LA to Victorville, the travel time from LA to LV will only be 2 hours or so.

BTW, this is exactly the approach the French took with their TGV -- they started with high speed rail segments out in the country, while retaining the normal speed rail closer in to the cities.

CMK10

Can't we please focus on bringing Amtrak service back to Las Vegas before making this idiotic white elephant?

Wally Bird

The one daily train (Amtrak Southwest Chief) takes 3 hours to get from LA to VCV and arrives 9.10pm. 120 rail miles in 3 hours is somewhat less than 80mph.

RatherBeOnATrain

You are confusing the quality of the existing track with the quality/speed of Amtrak's service over that track.

According to Amtrak's November 7, 2011 timetable, Amtrak #4 departs LA at 6:15, stop in Fullerton at 6:50 PM, stop again at Riverside at 7:33 PM, stop again at 7:59 at San Bernardino, then stop again at Victorville at 9:10 PM. They're taking 2 hours and 45 minutes, with four stops, to cover those 120 miles. Each time the train stops, it loses a lot of time because the train has to decelerate, it then spends dwell time at the station as people get on and off, then the train has to accelerate back up to speed.

So, yes, if you look at Amtrak's current timetable between those two points, that train is really slow.... but that's not the fault of the track. Consider at Metrolink's speed over the same route. Per Metrolink's schedule for their San Bernardino line, you can get on their train #310 at 4:06 AM and arrive at LA Union Station at 5:30 AM.... that is 1 hour and 24 minutes to cover 60 miles. That works out to an average speed of 42 mph... which doesn't sound fast, until you note all of the stops that the train makes between the LA and San Bernardino... specifically:

• Rialto
• Fontana
• Rancho Cucamonga
• Upland
• Montclair
• Claremont
• Pomona (North)
• Covina
• Baldwin Park
• El Monte
• Cal State LA

In order to make all those stops and still average 42 mph between the end points, Metrolink trains have to really zip between stations.... they do that using the existing 79 MPH track (I rounded up to 80 MPH in my earlier post) between LA Union Station and San Bernardino.

I hope this makes sense.

Wally Bird

Yes it did, and don't get me wrong I'm not anti-rail; far from it.

I just don't see that eliminating the Chief's intermediate stops is going to significantly reduce the time. BNSF supposedly guarantees it a path over Cajon so would presumably be asked to do the same for any high-speed connector(s). I don't know how many, if any, such paths could be made available and even then nothing short of a TGV/Acela is going to go over much faster than 40-50mph. So say LA-VCV can somehow be reduced to <2 hours (doubtful IMO) it's still another hour+ to LV. Not competitive with air, and most likely more expensive.

I am worried that a lack of foresight (even common sense) would result in this endeavor being a failure thereby adding more ammunition to the anti-rail lobby. As if they needed more.