Would You Take a Bullet Train from Anaheim to Las Vegas?... Brightline West

[truecoat]

Oh, don't get me started on the massive swindle that is "The Great Park"! What a crock.

Why anyone on this planet EVER believes anything a politician or bureaucrat tells them is beyond me.

That said, I do think John Wayne has worked wonders with that land and logistics hurdles they have. It's one of the highest rated airports, it's clean and easy and fast, and it has some truly remarkable flight options. You pay a bit more from the privilege, but it's worth it. I recently learned that American Airlines now offers its Flagship First lay-flat suites on nonstop flights from New York to John Wayne. Who knew?!?

I flew out of Long Beach last year after seeing ELO (and a one-day visit to DL). It was cool to board a plane on the "tarmac" as they say.

 

[NobodyElse]

I flew out of Long Beach last year after seeing ELO (and a one-day visit to DL). It was cool to board a plane on the "tarmac" as they say.

View attachment 799450

Back when I was flying to Dulles once a month, and JetBlue had yet to abandon Long Beach, that was my favorite non-stop route.

PS: I'll admit to being old enough to have flown out of SNA when it looked more like this:

(Like Long Beach, no jetways.)

 

[TP2000]

Brightline West, America's next private high speed passenger railroad after the success of Brightline Florida, recently released some new renderings of the consists and interiors for their bullet trains across the desert. Also, a new Siemens train factory is being built in upstate New York to build the trainsets for Brightline West, with the goal to have the railroad up and running by Summer '28 for the LA Olympics.

Unlike the Brightline Florida trainsets, the Brightline West will feature a custom lounge and bar car, or "Party Car" as they call it. This is the car on the train for revelers to toast to good luck on their way to Las Vegas at 220 MPH, and then drown their sorrows with the pocket change they have left on their way back home to SoCal at 220 MPH.

I'm not much of a gambler, but I love a good party and I like this Brightline West look!

 

[Figments Friend]

One word -

Sexy.




Looking at those images above, I am suddenly reminded of ‘Star Trek’.



-

 

[denyuntilcaught]

I absolutely love the design and the project overall. Cannot wait!

 

[KeithVH]

Every time I come back to check this thread and I see the title, my first thought is always "Yeah, but what if Lemon and Tangerine are on the train?" . . .

 

[TP2000]

I drove home yesterday. Put the car on autopilot and averaged 73 to 80 mph all along I-15 and could have made it home in a hair over 6 hours if it weren't for my mandatory stop at Caesars Palace and their fabulous Bacchanal Buffet. Not bad, but still not as fast as a bullet train.

I didn't see any active construction along the 15 owing to it being a Sunday, but I saw lots of clearly Brightline related construction zones for miles. (Meanwhile, at the California High Speed Rail Authority.... )

Here's the latest renderings/video from Brightline on what their Las Vegas terminal will look like south of the Strip. I can make fun of AI generated fever dreams with the best of 'em, but with Brightline's track record in Florida and with how quickly they are working on the Brightline West trackage, plus the grading already being done at this site in Las Vegas, I have to assume they are actually building this terminal. Nice!

 

[TP2000]

An update to this plan, what with today's non-shocking announcement that California High Speed Rail is getting its federal funding pulled after being 15 years late without a single mile of track laid, and no known ability to expand beyond a non-sensical Merced To Bakersfield line sometime around 2035. A complete failure on the original lie bill of goods sold to voters that we'd have an LA to San Francisco bullet train taking 2 and a half hours by 2020.

The opening date for Brightline West has been delayed by over 6 months to December, 2028 and thus won't be ready by the Summer Olympics. That seemed like a real stretch to me anyways, so not surprised to see that calendar update.

I drove I-15 to San Diego several days ago, and I could see what was obviously Brightline West work (lots of bollards and measuring equipment) in the freeway median on both the Nevada and California side of the border.

Here's a recent news update from Las Vegas TV news....

Brightline West high-speed rail line to SoCal not expected to be ready by 2028 Olympics

New bond filing documents state the Brightline West high-speed rail line to Southern California is not expected to be ready to transport passengers until December 2028.

www.ktnv.com

 

[DLR92]

Disappointing news…

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

So you're telling me in 2028, I'll be able to take the choo up the 15 and wine and dine while passing by the desert at high speed including my investment in the Mountain Pass Mine... then take a Waymo from the station to my hotel... then go see Wizard of Oz at the sphere? (I hope it's that amazing it's still playing 3 years from now). Looks like Vegas may earn a keep of my one annual trip for a few years.

 

[TP2000]

So you're telling me in 2028, I'll be able to take the choo up the 15 and wine and dine while passing by the desert at high speed including my investment in the Mountain Pass Mine... then take a Waymo from the station to my hotel... then go see Wizard of Oz at the sphere? (I hope it's that amazing it's still playing 3 years from now). Looks like Vegas may earn a keep of my one annual trip for a few years.

Go for it! That sounds like a decent plan. And fun, too!

Unlike California High Speed Rail, I should still be alive when this thing opens. I plan to take at least one trip on it, if only to do one of my famous White Glove InspectionTM tours of their bar car with a test of the bartenders knowledge at 200mph.

I'm still just not convinced this is going to work well longer-term with the terminus out in Rancho Cucamonga, instead of LA Union Station or Anaheim's nearly-abandoned ARTIC station.

But, I will say the speed and efficiency with which private industry works and builds a new passenger bullet train is impressive. Just look at Brightline Florida, and now Brightline West.

And compared to California High Speed Rail To Nowhere: 2035 Sacramento Edition? It's not even close.

But honestly, they've got to figure out a way to get a station in central LA or OC for Brightline West. Once you've got someone in their car driving for an hour headed towards Vegas, it's hard to get them to stop and board a train.

 

[Professortango1]

I'm still just not convinced this is going to work well longer-term with the terminus out in Rancho Cucamonga, instead of LA Union Station or Anaheim's nearly-abandoned ARTIC station.

Rancho is incredibly smart as people from LA Country will drive to Rancho to take a high speed to Vegas. People from the IE and San Bernardino, and a lot of OC, will not drive to LA to catch a train to Vegas. I fly, but I only fly out of Ontario. I'm not going to waste a 90 minutes to 2.5 hours driving away from Vegan to fight with LA traffic and parking to pay a bunch of money to avoid a 4-5 hour drive. I WILL drive 35 minutes to Rancho and pay a few hundred to avoid the drive.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

Rancho is incredibly smart as people from LA Country will drive to Rancho to take a high speed to Vegas. People from the IE and San Bernardino, and a lot of OC, will not drive to LA to catch a train to Vegas. I fly, but I only fly out of Ontario. I'm not going to waste a 90 minutes to 2.5 hours driving away from Vegan to fight with LA traffic and parking to pay a bunch of money to avoid a 4-5 hour drive. I WILL drive 35 minutes to Rancho and pay a few hundred to avoid the drive.

Yup, essentially 90% of the people from socal already pass the train station in Rancho on their haul to Vegas. While I personally would like to see a start in LA with a stop in Rancho and then on into the Mojave, Rancho is the more common point of the 2 areas.

All it takes is one reminder of how bad Cajon Pass gets on a Sunday coming home and 100% of people would at least take an interested glance into what the train can offer.

As a person who enjoys trains yet doesn't ride them enough, I'm excited.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Yup, essentially 90% of the people from socal already pass the train station in Rancho on their haul to Vegas. While I personally would like to see a start in LA with a stop in Rancho and then on into the Mojave, Rancho is the more common point of the 2 areas.

All it takes is one reminder of how bad Cajon Pass gets on a Sunday coming home and 100% of people would at least take an interested glance into what the train can offer.

As a person who enjoys trains yet doesn't ride them enough, I'm excited.

I think it’ll work for a lot of southern Californians going to Vegas but nearly every Vegas resident I’ve talked to have said they won’t use it because of the end point, obviously LA is the larger audience but I think they missed out on a couple million trips a year from Vegas residents who’d love to take it to LA, Disneyland, the beaches, etc.

As a Vegas resident (who loves trains in Europe) all I can hope for is it takes enough CA cars off the road to make my drive easier.

Paying an extra $20 for a 10 minute uber to the Strip is a no-brainer, having to rent a car or pay an extra $75 for an hour long uber to anyplace you’d want to go in LA is a deal breaker.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

For the sake of interest, I have visited every Disney park in the last six years, and arrived by metro/rail at every one of them, except the two US resorts.


I think that in the not too distant future hailed self-driving / flying vehicles will be the global standard means of transport, but for now, the difference between the US and the rest of the world remains rather striking.

 

[TP2000]

I think it’ll work for a lot of southern Californians going to Vegas but nearly every Vegas resident I’ve talked to have said they won’t use it because of the end point, obviously LA is the larger audience but I think they missed out on a couple million trips a year from Vegas residents who’d love to take it to LA, Disneyland, the beaches, etc.

Bingo! And since Anaheim already has a semi-abandoned, overbuilt, and bankrupt high speed rail station built for a California system that will never arrive, both Anaheim and Disney should be talking to the Brightline folks to figure out how to get the trains to end in Anaheim instead of Rancho Cucamonga. Hence... this thread.

Sacramento said this would have over 20 Million passengers a year on California's bullet train by 2020, but it never happened.

Anaheim and its taxpayers got stuck with the expensive bill for building this boondoggle station, too.

 

[TP2000]

I think that in the not too distant future hailed self-driving / flying vehicles will be the global standard means of transport, but for now, the difference between the US and the rest of the world remains rather striking.

I think so too, but the US is already way ahead of the rest of the world with fleets of robo-taxis on surface streets in LA, San Francisco, San Jose, Austin, Dallas, etc. I listened to a podcast about this exact topic a few weeks ago.

There are plans to try and get them approved for London and other global cities, but so far the governments in those nations are not helping much. Waymo is actively working towards getting approval for freeway use in California by Christmas of this year.

I think once Waymo can get approval to operate via the California freeway system, the downfall of Uber and human driven taxis will be rather swift. But the rest of the world is well behind the US on that front, owing to government regulations and red tape.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

I think so too, but the US is already way ahead of the rest of the world with fleets of robo-taxis on surface streets in LA, San Francisco, San Jose, Austin, Dallas, etc. I listened to a podcast about this exact topic a few weeks ago.

There are plans to try and get them approved for London and other global cities, but so far the governments in those nations are not helping much. Waymo is actively working towards getting approval for freeway use in California by Christmas of this year.

I think once Waymo can get approval to operate via the California freeway system, the downfall of Uber and human driven taxis will be rather swift. But the rest of the world is well behind the US on that front, owing to government regulations and red tape.

I think not just Uber, but private car ownership could be outdated, soon-ish.

It will help me to succeed in one of my secret life goals: to go a lifetime without ever having a driver’s license, like David Attenborough, and still having a job and traveling the world.

 

[Parteecia]

downfall of Uber

Their plan all along has been robo taxis. Human drivers have been a necessary temporary step on the way, to be eliminated as soon as possible.

 

[John park hopper]

I think not just Uber, but private car ownership could be outdated, soon-ish.

It will help me to succeed in one of my secret life goals: to go a lifetime without ever having a driver’s license, like David Attenborough, and still having a job and traveling the world.

Love my car and the freedom to go any where any time I want