Posted on 03/03/2023 7:30:09 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
A private company that wants to build a high-speed rail line from Southern California to Las Vegas took a step toward construction on Thurdsay with the announcement of a labor agreement for the proposed project.
Local ABC affiliate KABC-7 reported:
Brightline, the company that will build the system, has announced a landmark labor agreement with the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition, which is “compromised of 13 rail unions representing more than 160,000 freight, regional, commuter, and passenger railroad workers in the United States.”
…
The $10 billion investment is expected to create nearly 35,000 jobs during construction and over 1,000 permanent jobs once operational, according to a press release from Brightline.
The fully-electric train will be able to travel 200 miles an hour.
The idea for a bullet train to Las Vegas has survived the ongoing failures of the public high-speed rail project between San Francisco and Los Angeles. That project, approved in principle by voters in a 2008 referendum, has ballooned in cost and has encountered numerous environmental objections. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) canceled much of the project when he took office in 2019, keeping only a portion in the Central Valley that has yet to be built and which will only connect two remote towns where there is little passenger rail demand.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Private - am I to assume, from the headline, that this will be privately funded and not a government-controlled boondoggle? If that’s the case, then maybe somebody actually researched the viability of such a transportation venture and decided that it was viable and potentially profitable.
Las Vegas will look like east LA in about 6 months.
Garages will have to be built. Just think of the $15/night fees. Or more.
That would be Button Willow to Barstow.
High speed mean concrete pedestals that look like towers. Vegas will always have water issues. I dunno.
The section of rail to nowhere in Fresno, CA, when viewed from ground level, looks like something out of the past, commonly found in a failed former Soviet Union client state, much like Uzbekistan.
With regard to this particular piece of gargantuan infrastructure, there is rarely a crew found onsite large enough to fill a pickup truck’s crew cab.
Brightline has done well in Florida, It will be interesting to see how they do in CA/NV.
California High Speed Grifting
the Sequel.
not a government-controlled boondoggle?
\/
Infrastructure bill needs to be checked for a connection.
The Strip is on its way to dying.
Not completely safe to walk down it these days and NEVER walk off of it.
The casino workers act like you owe them a living and service is worthless in the strip Hotels. Some of those hotels should not pass health inspection.
Hate to say this but..the mob knew how to run LV and ran it very well. They made you feel like royalty when the mob ran it.
Think drought. Everyone fighting for water. This project makes Vegas too big to fail.
flight time between those two cities is a tad over 90 minutes; 200 mph train will be considerably slower due to intermediate station stops and the fact that the train won’t really go 200 mph into las vegas;
next-day economy-class flight tickets range between $80-$200; one or two weeks advance purchase is even cheaper ...
one must also weigh the time and hassle of station arrival and departure, which MIGHT be a bit less hassle with a train ...
let’s say average train ticket is $100.00 round trip per person ... how many tickets will have to be sold to break even?
first, there’s the (supposed) $10 billion PLUS interest on the bonds to pay back, which would be $20 billion for a 30 year bond at 5.27% interest
then there’s operation and maintenance costs, looking about the internet, there’s numerous complicating factors, but $200,000,000/year for that line isn;’t unreasonable
so: $1.5 billion per year to pay back bonds and .2 billion per year to operate, for grand total of $1.7 billion per year
if round-trip tickets really were $100.00 then 17,000,000 tickets per year would have to be sold to break even ... that’s roughly 47,000 round-trip tickets per day, which would be a total of 94,000 one-way trips
assume 12 hours operation, then that would be 7,800 passenger trips per hour ... assume two tracks, then 3,900 trips in each direction per track per hour ... so at least 40 trains with enough cars to carry one thousand passengers each ...
(of course, none of those calculations consider peak travel periods like weekends and holidays, which only makes the calculations much worse, perhaps nearly impossible)
at any rate, does that sound economically feasible to anyone?
275 miles-—
WILL NOT survive first hard earthquake.
IS I-15 even open with all the snow???
“High speed mean concrete pedestals that look like towers. “
You can get Amtrak La->LV that takes about 9 hours and costs about $80 one way.
The proposed train can do it in 2.5 hours. Didn’t see cost.
Here’s an idea: have a casino car where you could drink and gamble even while the train was in California.
Brightline will probably get this done. They built a great railroad in Florida. LA to Vegas makes sense. A central valley railroad does not.
I agree. This is actually a good idea.
And I see Governor Newsolini is against it. Figures.
This is a fantastic idea although I thought the airlines were going to try to sink it.
Spent may too many hours on the 15 sitting still.
Yes and two free beers.
Was this written by an AI app, or does it represent the education level of journalists:
“has announced a landmark labor agreement with the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition, which is “compromised of 13 rail unions”
So, the labor coalition is “compromised” “of” 13 rail unions. I guess someone or something did not understand the difference between “comprised” and “compromised”. LOL
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