Train LA to Las Vegas
 

Does a rail link still exist from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Glenwood Springs? I did this trip in 1991 using an Amtrak Rail Pass, eventually taking the train from Glenwood Springs to Chicago. I've just borrowed a book from the Library published 2003 about Rail Travel in the USA and there is no mention of this route - does it still exist? It would be a shame if it didn't as I always remeMber the site of neon lit Las Vegas appearing from the darkness of the desert and alighting at the Station which was a casino itself!

No, that route has been cancelled. I think AMTRAK just can't justify three trains from Chicago to LA (including the Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited connection). The Southwest Chief (the old Santa Fe route) is much faster to LA than through the Colorado Rockies and Las Vegas.

The LAX-LAS-CHI route was cancelled a few years ago. There has been talk for a few years now of restarting service LAX-LAS but I don't know what the status of that is.

Yonatan

Yes, the Desert Wind was cancelled in '87-'88.

AFAIK, talk of running a Talgo trainset between LA an Vegas is still just talk. There was some upgrading of the UP mainline that needed to be done and I don't think that work has started yet.

Actually, LAX-LAS Amtrak service existed at least until 1995 (I have a schedule and brochure from Amtrak from that year with the route in question). It seems to had been cancelled in 1996. A shame, too; more convenient than flying, a lot less weary than driving. Always did want to take that route but I was just 15 at the time.

------------------
Best regards,
Dairenn Lombard
Los Angeles, CA

Amtrak was unable to get the new LA-Las Vegas Talgo off the ground due to federal budget problems and the lack of a full state partner. Nevada had some funding available but not to the extent that CA funds its services.

A strip stop at the Rio would have been included. Project could still happen, but very uncertain.

Silly me. I was on the Desert Wind January 3, 1995. Darn typos...

Edited to add the last run appears to have been on May 10, 1997.

[This message has been edited by birdstrike (edited Mar 13, 2004).]

Had to have been; 'cause now that I think of it, I almost booked a trip August, 1996 (I have a postcard from someone I was going to visit "looking forward to my visit" of that postmark date). I went to San Diego in 1997 and that's when I learned there was no more LAS service out of LAX. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/frown.gif

------------------
Best regards,
Dairenn Lombard
Los Angeles, CA

Apologies for the nitpick, but Amtrak has never served LAX. Amtrak serves Union Station in Los Angeles but not Los Angeles International Airport.

Amtrak has its own abbreviations for its destinations, and the Amtrak designation for Los Angeles Union Station is LAX.

I stand corrected. Thanks!

In order to be consistent, Amtrak needs to change NYP to JFK and change WAS to IAD. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

Considering that there's already a mismatch between the official LAUPT (Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal) and more informal "Union Station" designations used for the place, it seems fitting that they just went ahead with "LAX" as the three-character designator.

Thanks for the info folks. I guess I was lucky to have travelled the route before it closed down. There is an intersesting article here http://www.lvlife.com/may1998/features/story06.html
about the background to the closure.

I also traveled that route (the Desert Wind), the Pioneer (now also terminated), the San Francisco Zephyr (now called the California Zephyr, but back then it ran through Wyoming instead of Colorado) and just about every other Amtrack route in the Western U.S. I bought a pass my first summer at college and exploited every loophole that pass had regarding routing; for a couple of hundred dollars, I got to almost every major Western U.S. city. You can't do that anymore; the next Amtrak tarriff changed the wording to close the loopholes I exploited.

If you really wanted to, you could travel by Amtrak between LA and the lesser gambling mecca of Laughlin, NV. You get off the train in red-hot Needles, CA and take a bus from/to there.