LA - Las Vegas Service - Redux

Both of the other major boards are presently discussing this topic. What sayeth we have a little discussion of our own around here?

For the benefit of those tuning in late, Las Vegas-LA was a historical route of the UP. Vegas was intermediate stop for the City trains as well as the Mail. Additionally there was a City of Las Vegas that served the two points.

Without checking my timetable collection for the precise dates, for one season circa 1973, Amtrak operated an LV-LA train; and of course, for some fifteen years roundly 1980-95, operated the Desert Wind on which LV was a well patronized intermediate stop. Since then, numerous Local initiatives have been "on the table", including a delivered Talgo trainset (the Blue Train, so I'm told), but to date no service.

So let's 'go at it'; and let the other boards know "we're baack"!

As I recall in the 1970s there were a couple of short-lived LA-LV trains. I'll check Frailey's book again.

Here's a better idea: Let's let "them" know we're better. Specifically that we know better than to pretend that this is going to happen while Norman Mineta is Secretary of Transportation and giving congressional testimony in favor of a $900 million appropriation for Amtrak. Those are the facts. You don't have to like them, but you do have to accept them.

There is no sense discussing any expansion of the Amtrak route system until the Mineta Moratorium is lifted. Fortunately, there are apparently other places on the Internet to discuss, er, nonsense.

Mr. Fels is certainly welcome NOT to participate in this thread if he is so inclined.

If we want to discuss, LA-Las Vegas service, does Mr. Norman have an angle he wants to come at this from. Is there any new on this front? Is this to be about pros and cons? Is it to be about service models?

Are we 100 % certain that the terms of the loan were extended , when the loan was extended . i.e is the moritorium on new services still in force ? .i had an idea it had an expiry date , and though the loan was extended , was the moritoruim also extended ? .

Mr. Fels' reference to the "Mineta Moratorium" is of course appropriate and understandable. But from what I have seen of Mr. Mineta's understanding about passenger railroading, I wonder whether he even understands the scope of his own order. The guy is really unimpressive when it comes to Amtrak policy.

Now, turning to the Desert Wind, my feeling on the subject is that the train will only be viable if it is restored as a full service Superliner-equiped section of the California Zephyr. Any kind of stub service between LAX and LAS strikes me as providing too little utillity to justify the cost, and too little flexibility to compete with the extensive airline service already available.

Wasn't there a Talgo transet waiting for the service to start? Didn't it tour LA-LV? Where's that Talgo set now? I read about this on trainweb.com.

Just with Southwest,

There are 16 flights TO LV from LAX, daily.

14 from Burbank

4 from Orange County

10 from Ontario

Folks, you can read my comments on a different board. 1 daily turn from one central station will not answer the demand.

I honestly believe for a LA-LV service to work, there must be FREQUENCY of service, DECENTRALIZATION of departure points, and ENTERTAINMENT as an alternative to "waiting at the departure airport and riding on the plane" time.

PS: As for the comment asking for censorship of Matt Fels, that is an insult to a thoughtful person. He and I don't always agree (I'm sometimes too deep in the historical precedent school), but I look to his reported facts and assessed opinions, just as I look to Gil's reported facts and assessed opinions

Rhinecliff wrote: Now, turning to the Desert Wind, my feeling on the subject is that the train will only be viable if it is restored as a full service Superliner-equiped section of the California Zephyr. Any kind of stub service between LAX and LAS strikes me as providing too little utillity to justify the cost, and too little flexibility to compete with the extensive airline service already available.

I'm having trouble grasping why a 2,100-mile run from Chicago would succeed while a 350-mile service from Los Angeles would fail. The old Desert Wind didn't service to Vegas - LA market well on account of its early departure (7 am) and late arrival (8:40 pm) in Vegas. Unless you planned on doing an all-nighter in the casinos, a train trip would require two nights in a hotel.

OTOH, a competitively marketed service (5 1/2 hr. trip time, reasonable fares, morning departure from LA, early evening departure from Vegas) should attract decent ridership - 200 - 300 passengers per day each way - given the size of the Southern California market.

If you wanted Chicago - Las Vegas service, I'd go with a stub train from Barstow to Las Vegas consisting of a sleeper and coach/cafe off the SW Chief. The Barstow - Las Vegas distance is less than half that of Salt Lake City - Las Vegas, 184 vs. 448, so you would save a crew district and considerable fuel expense. Arrival and departure times in Vegas would be about the same as for Los Angeles.

I honestly believe for a LA-LV service to work, there must be FREQUENCY of service, DECENTRALIZATION of departure points, and ENTERTAINMENT as an alternative to "waiting at the departure airport and riding on the plane" time.

Frequency is good, but keep in mind that without a radical upgrade of the route to cut trip times to under hour hours each way, one RT per day is about all you could get out of a trainset on this run. Thus, the economies of scale are limited. Unless you could prove that somehow 2+2 would equal five, i.e. the gains from multiple frequencies would exceed the out-of-pocket costs, it would be difficult to make the case at this time for a second or third $10 million trainset.

As for decentralization, keep in mind stops would be made in Fullerton and San Bernardino, and train schedules could be coordinated with Metrolink and the Pacific Surfliner from San Diego and Santa Barbara. Unlike the airport, a train has some decentralization built into its route.

I have no problem with Entertainment, but I doubt that would be the number one reason people would take the train. Comfort, relief from driving fatique/stress, fear of flying, fear of terrorists, avoiding airport security lines come to mind as higher priorities. OTOH, scenery on this route is pretty bland, from my recollection, so having a showgirl or two running up the aisles wouldn't hurt.

As for the comment asking for censorship of Matt Fels, that is an insult to a thoughtful person.

I apologize if you felt that is what my remark intended. I would suggest that it was Mr. Fels who was calling for censorship by saying "There is no sense discussing any expansion of the Amtrak route system until the Mineta Moratorium is lifted. Fortunately, there are apparently other places on the Internet to discuss, er, nonsense."

Mr. Fels certainly is entitled to his opinion. However, I come from the school that believes that if you have nothing constructive or substantive to offer to a dialogue it is better to say nothing.

Apology accepted in re Mr Fels. Let us speak no more of it.

Getting back to the topic at hand...

San Bernardino, CA at the station is about 1,050 feet above sea level. Cajon Summit is about 3825 feet above sea level. 2800 feet, GOING UP.

That is nearly the level of effort the CZ needs to get over the Front Range at Denver (5,280 feet to 8,500 feet).

ANY railroad wanting to speed up this run HAS TO DO two construction projects:

First, when was the last time you rode San Bernardino to LAUPT??? I've done it time and again since I was a child in the 60s. The fast running used to end at East Los Angeles station, about seven miles out from Union Station. These days, that running ends at Fullerton, and you don't get very fast on AMT 3/4 from San Bernardino to Fullerton. THE FIRST CONSTRUCTION PROJECT is to separate the roads and the railroad in the LA standard metropolitan statistical area. As long as the railroad crosses at grade and competes with local freight traffic amongst itself, this is a slowdown.

The SECOND CONSTRUCTION project is to lower the mountains. Ralph Budd lowered the GN in the Cascades by tunneling. Anyone wanting fast runs from Los Angeles to Las Vegas will have to tunnel to reduce the grade and the level of effort needed to get over the grade.

Let's not forget Cima summit, beyond Barstow. 2120 feet ASL at Kelso to 4196 at CIMA (2000 vertical up) in 20 miles. Here you cannot tunnel, as the general terrain is rising from the California coastal plain to the Basin and Range province.

Take a look at topozone sometime, and look at the route of San Berdoo to Barstow, and Barstow to Las Vegas. Not easy railroading.

My thoughts, John

Li Loco Wrote:

I'm having trouble grasping why a 2,100-mile run from Chicago would succeed while a 350-mile service from Los Angeles would fail. The old Desert Wind didn't service to Vegas - LA market well on account of its early departure (7 am) and late arrival (8:40 pm) in Vegas. Unless you planned on doing an all-nighter in the casinos, a train trip would require two nights in a hotel.
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Actually, I think Mr. Li Loco has the old schedule wrong. As I recall, the Desert Wind left LAX in the morning, and arrived LAS in the afternoon (around 3:00 p.m.).

As a practical matter, a stub train with talgo equipment would not enjoy an appreciably shorter running time than a full-service, Superliner-equipped train.

The critical advantage of restoring service to LAS by means of a through train is that the train's market would be expanded exponentially. By using a stub train, the only market is LAX to LAS, which is already perfectly served by the airlines.

ohlemeier wrote:Wasn't there a Talgo transet waiting for the service to start? Didn't it tour LA-LV? Where's that Talgo set now? I read about this on trainweb.com.

It's currently running the daily round-trip between Seattle and Vancouver.

Actually, I think Mr. Li Loco has the old schedule wrong. As I recall, the Desert Wind left LAX in the morning, and arrived LAS in the afternoon (around 3:00 p.m.).

A 1989 schedule in my collection lists the following times:

#35
Lv. Las Vegas 7:13 am
Ar. Los Angeles 2:02 pm

#36
Lv. Los Angeles 1:00 pm
Ar. Las Vegas 7:55 pm

If the schedule was changed sometime between then and the train's demise in 1997, I was not aware of that.

As a practical matter, a stub train with talgo equipment would not enjoy an appreciably shorter running time than a full-service, Superliner-equipped train.

That may be. I'm only recalling proposals made after 1997 for restoring the LA - Las Vegas segment that called for use of Talgo trains running on a 5 1/2-hour schedule.

The critical advantage of restoring service to LAS by means of a through train is that the train's market would be expanded exponentially. By using a stub train, the only market is LAX to LAS, which is already perfectly served by the airlines.

If we're comparing a restored Desert Wind to a connecting service off the SW Chief we're trading one set of intermediate points - Salt Lake City, Denver, Omaha - for another - Albuquerque, Kansas City, St. Louis. The Desert Wind operated with 4 - 5 cars, only two of which ran east of Salt Lake City, IIRC; two cars are all that would be needed for the Barstow - Las Vegas connection.

A train from LA to Vegas serves more than that market alone. Connections are available at LAUPT with the entire Metrolink system, the Pacific Surfliner route and LD routes including the Sunset Ltd., Coast Starlight and SW Chief (connection could be made at San Bernardino or Barstow). A bus link could tie in the San Joaquin route from Bakersfield, too. Thus LA - Las Vegas is hardly isolated.

And, just because the route has excellent air service there is no reason to assume that a well marketed rail service wouldn't fly - pardon the pun. We're talking about metro areas of 15 million and two million people approximately 350 miles apart. That's certainly within the range for which rail is a viable option.

The success of the Pacific Surfliner, San Joaquin and Capitol routes has shown that where a choice is available some car-crazy Californians will opt for rail. We don't need all of the travelers in that market. We only need enough to fill a train.

Has there been any effort to attempt to resore passenger service form Los Angeles to at least Las Vegas?

I ask this question because on another site I was reading how I-15, the main interstate from LA to Las Vegas is to undergo a major construction project, the result of which will cause significant traffic jams.

1. Can this proposed train work in the pattern of the Reno Fun Train?

2. Please realize that immense roadwork has not deterred the locals here in Chicago from taking the expressway - we're having our biggest project ever, and although Metra/South Shore are seeing record traffic (since 1961), the highway is a nightmare and more could ride. I can't imagine LA residents would be as willing to ditch their car as Chicago residents.