Midnight Movie: High-Speed Rail in California

I think a tear came to mine eye...

*sigh*
i'd love it.

Enough talk let's just do it! Just don't forget to connect it to Vegas. :-)

@ peekist -

220mph = 350kph, as fast as any bullet train in the world today. The 1980s vintage TGVs max out at 187mph = 300kph. There's a limit to how fast you can go on steel wheels. Besides, what you need to compare is door-to-door trip times. Train stations are downtown and you don't need to subject yourself to security screening before you plop down in your roomy chair and fire up your laptop.

@ johnny -

yes, that would make sense. Of course, thanks in part to the delay in getting the California system onto the ballot, there are already two competing high-speed rail projects for Las Vegas in the EIR/EIS mill:

- the privately funded $3.5 billion DesertXPress to Victorville, based on diesel trains at 125mph and,

- Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Nev) $12 billion maglev gadgetbahn to Disneyland in Anaheim and the planned $4 billion Ivanpah Valley airport between Jean and Primm.

Some 30% of all flights into and out of McCurran airport are from and to California cities that would be served by the steel wheels HSR network. If Nevadans pay for a nice straight spur off that and cancel the other projects, people could get to Vegas from Burbank in ~1:45 hours, LA in ~2:00, Anaheim in ~2:20, San Jose and Sacramento in ~3:00 and SF/San Diego in ~3:20.

Palmdale airport would be 1:20 from Las Vegas, but that might be good enough for some passengers - especially if they could take care of check-in and security on the train!

Based on the DesertXPress estimate, the cost of electrification and high-speed rolling stock plus the slightly longer route, I'm guessing such a spur would cost $7-$10 billion, depending on the exact alignment and how nice a station people want in Las Vegas.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107511680599374219842.00044e26854cb91cf518e&z=7