Metro Jacksonville

Luxury party train between SoCal and Vegas: En route in 2013?
Los Angeles Times: November 23, 2012

Travelers headed to Las Vegas for some weekend fun may soon be able to begin their debauchery five hours earlier, if a proposed passenger train line between Southern California and Sin City materializes as planned next year.

Las Vegas Railway Express Inc. hammered out a conditional agreement last week with Union Pacific Railroad to use a rail line currently limited to freight trains to shuttle passengers in high style from the Los Angeles Basin to the Strip, the company said [hat tip to the AP].

The deal gives LVRE access to a route between Las Vegas and Daggett, an unincorporated town in San Bernardino County. But the company plans to have its X Train, which is set to begin service in late 2013, launch its trips from Fullerton.

The so-called “party on wheels,” which would leave Southern California on Thursdays and Fridays with more than a dozen cars and return from downtown Vegas on Sundays and Mondays, has been in the works since 2009. Regular passenger rail service between the two areas has been nonexistent for 13 years, according to the company.

The corridor is often clogged for motor vehicle travelers, with traffic expected to double by 2020 to 126,000 vehicles a day on Interstate 15 just south of Vegas, up from 60,000 now, according to LVRE.

The company said its trains will make the same trip in less than five hours. Earlier this month, Greyhound launched a direct, five-hour bus line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

For its rail service, LVRE envisions first-class accommodations, including chef-prepared meals, tables with flat screen televisions, live performances, customer service from so-called “conductresses” and sports lounges. Private cars can host business meetings, bachelor and bachelorette parties and more.

Some 4 million people a year could use a conventional rail passenger train, the company said, citing a study by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. With additional revenues from serving as a concierge to travelers â€" helping to book hotel rooms, spa appointments, dinner reservations and show tickets â€" LVRE believes its business could be worth $500 million a year.

The company said some 1,000 workers will be needed to fill roles in management, service, technical support and more. It anticipates spending $10 million building the arrival depot in Las Vegas. More than 2 million guests will travel via the X Train each year, according to LVRE.

The travel price is currently set at $99.


http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-x-train-vegas-california-20121123,0,1295767.story

Sorry Jdog, but that title is about the funniest thing I've seen on MJ in a long time.  My immediate observations are, "Really? Did they think it was going to use I-15?  This whole project hinged on the ability to get the railroads to carry a train over their tracks for a payment... as-if there was another way? An agreement to run on the UP between Vegas and Daggett will have to be followed by a deal to operate on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad from Daggett to Fullerton. As you can see from the photo, terminating the train in Daggett probably wouldn't be the smartest thing to do.


I'm looking forward to riding on this train, it's only about 70 miles west or north of my desert acreage (another garden spot of the world) Hey but I've got stellar view of Goat Mountain!


All joking aside, this route, not unlike the Florida East Coast was 'created' for the passenger train. I'll be watching to see how they propose to speed this thing along on the Union Pacific or BNSF portion both of which run at or near capacity with freight every day. Amtrak also uses a small chunk of this route between Daggett and San Bernardino.

Watch for other developments in this area too, such as reestablishment of passenger service between Palmdale and Bakersfield, a line marked as a portion of California High Speed Rail. If the Desert Express is highly successful, I would expect a sister train to start running between Vegas and Daggett on the Union Pacific, then via the BNSF from Daggett to Barstow-Mojave-Bakersfield-San Francisco Bay Area on the route of the old 'San Francisco Chief.'

Its good to see the project come down to earth and check the pie-in-the-sky ideas for mag-lev and monorails between Vegas and LA. Those projects never had a prayer of paying for their capital costs or breaking even as a business enterprise which is probably why they have existed only in the form of dreams for decades. 

Many pundits in the train industry still think this service will never see the light of day. XTrain has their trainsets, the ROW agreement with UP is still contingent on liability insurance.

These are the same pundits who see All Aboard Florida with crossed eyes as well, so who knows?

The CEO says he can start service for only $25 million, though "total" cost for the rollout will be closer to $50 million.

UP should be wary, if I was letting a private startup run passenger trains on my main freight transcon route, I would give the once over.

I hope it works out, but they still have alot of work to do.