Brightline West (XpressWest, DesertXpress) Las Vegas - Victorville - Rancho Cucamanga - LA Proposal

RocketJet wrote:Hey everyone, i'm new here but the recent news about the change from DesertXpress to XpressWest has got me thinking and I wanted to give my thoughts on the subject. I had a really negative opinion of the way both California High Speed Rail and DesertXpress were being designed and implemented but this change may be changing my mind.

With their talk of expanding westward to Palmdale and eastward to Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Denver from Las Vegas, I wonder if this new branding could be a game changer. The money from Las Vegas may be the key for a high speed rail corridor in the west as it is such a huge tourist destination, with all the politics that comes with that, I feel like it could attract private investors whether it be the casino's or whatever, there seems to be a lot to be gained if this is done properly.

For me, I feel like California HSR is going to make or break this. XpressWest from california will look a lot more viable if people can take a high speed train from San Diego, Orange County, LA, or whatever to Palmdale and then switch trains only once to go wherever they are going. This will make the XpressWest brand look much more legitimate as you do not have to leave your car in victorville or hop Metrolink trains to get there.

My question is how exactly they plan to build from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and then on to Denver, those mountains are pretty crazy

I'm not even sure Las Vegas to Salt Lake or Phoenix will ever be built. They're not even studying these expansions. Although I'll admit once the Palmdale to Las Vegas line gets built, it'll be a shame not to consider extending it.

I disagree with your assessment that CHSR is key for success. You can already ride trains from as far away as Boston to San Diego. You can already ride a single train from Los Angeles to Palmdale to make that cross platform transfer. You don't need CHSR to do so. That's why that recent agreement with Metrolink is important, it no longer matters where CHSR is routed north of Los Angeles, i.e. via Palmdale or along I-5.

Additionally, if the Metrolink corridor to Palmdale is ever electrified, then Xpress trains could go all the way to Union Station in downtown LA, which would reduce the number of transfers needed.

That could be interesting as the new "blended" plan talks about electrifying Caltrain and then hinting about possibly electrifying Amtrak's Surfliner route between San DIego and Union Station which shares some track with Metrolink in some areas. My reasoning for the importance of Caliofrnia High Speed Rail as far as XpressWest is that I do not see it doing well without people being able to take high speed trains to get there.

Ultimately if we are being realistic, if there is too much difficulty getting to the train, people will just drive. Therefore, I think it is doomed if the Palmdale expansion never happens. Now, if the the Palmdale section is built, SOME people will ride Metrolink to get there but that is still be prohibitively complex or slow for people who do not already want to ride a train.

With a high speed rail corridor between San Diego-LA-SanFran/Sacramento where Palmdale is a station, if the stations were right next door, people could see it is an easy transfer as long as the timing was convenient in which case both lines would benefit.

My question about the expansion to Utah, Denver, and Phoenix (I think it should go all the way to Tucson so they could add another few million people that can access it) consists of if we see that the corridor is successful assuming both CA HSR and XpressWest get off the ground, we could see more investors from Vegas come forth looking to bring in more people from these other places.

I feel that the XpressWest project is fragile with a lot running on CA HSR because of the reality that most people are not going to park their car in Victorville and PAY MORE to get to the same place. Now say people in ALL of the cities CA HSR is supposed to go through are connected, people will see the vegas route as much more reasonable and practical for their travel itinerary.

The thing that scares me with this is just how long this is all going to take, if it takes too long it will lose political support and investor support which will doom the project.

Continuing in the pork-barrel vein, here are some more route possibilities.

Boise, ID: 0.62m -- capital and largest city
Salt Lake City - Boise: 341 mi

A Wyoming route between SLC and Denver could include
Cheyenne, WY: 0.09m -- capital and largest city

Albuquerque, NM: 0.9m - largest city
Phoenix - Albuquerque: 466 mi

So XpressWest's plans include lines in these states: CA, NV, AZ, UT, CO, and likely WY
ID and AZ strike me as rather weak possibilities from the long distances and low populations, but adding them makes 8 states.

Let's see which states might form a "HSR Caucus". ME, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD (10), VA, NC (2), MI, IL, MO (3), WA, OR, CA (3): 18 states. The XpressWest additional states are another 5, with possibly 2 more, giving 23 or 25 states.

I was wondering if the roundabout routing of Metrolink, at commuter rail speeds (79 mph with frequent stops) would actually be of any use to the XpressWest service. So I ran some numbers.

According to Metrolink's current schedules, Palmdale-LAUS is 1:51 on a local, and 1:33 on the one express of the day. (The weekend schedules shave a few minutes off the local times.) Palmdale-Downtown Burbank is 1:26 local, 1:18 (?!) express. For comparison, Google claims that station-station driving times are 1:13 PMD-LAUS and 0:59 PMD-BUR in ideal traffic conditions. XpressWest has been pitching 1:20 Victorville-Las Vegas with their 150 mph trains; if we add 40 minutes for Victorville-Palmdale we get 3:51 LAUS-LV and 3:26 BUR-LV with a local Metrolink, against 4:21 driving from either station (via the more direct I-210 and Cajon Pass). That's still competitive, but not the position of superiority that would entice people out of their cars, outside of peak driving times when I-15 is a parking lot.

That said, assuming that XpressWest is going to have to build Palmdale-Victorville at some point anyway, it's probably much cheaper from an operations standpoint to lash up with Metrolink now, than to run connecting motorcoach service itself from Downtown LA and the San Fernando Valley. It might also, perversely enough, attract investors, who will appreciate the seriousness of connecting to Palmdale sooner, instead of remaining orphaned in Victorville, and leaving Palmdale for a later round of fundraising (which may never come, c.f. "Las Vegas Monorail").

One thing I've left out of this so far is the rather sparse schedule on the Antelope Valley Line. The schedule as exists strongly implies that Metrolink cannot or does not want to run hourly headways in both directions through the Soledad Canyon; off-peak service is bad, reverse-peak service is almost non-existent, and there is not much in the way of after-hours service that will probably be the bread-and-butter of XpressWest, excepting that which is mandated by the very long runtime from Downtown LA to the high desert. If these railroads are serious about providing connecting service, then this state of affairs will need altering.

I see Phoenix and Tucson as possibilities, although the Phoenix-LA link is more important than Phoenix-Las Vegas, but ideas of going to Salt Lake City or Denver are misplaced. The dear citizens of Salt Lake City make very few trips to Vegas and the people in Vegas have very few reasons to travel to Salt Lake City. The cultures of the two cities are just too different.

Phoenix seems considerably simpler to reach than Las Vegas, by way of purchasing the Arizona and California Railroad from Cadiz, CA to Matthie, AZ. Of course, XpressWest would need to rebuild and regrade the line the line for HSR and apply for time-segregated service, but it's reasonably direct from near Barstow to near Phoenix, and would give the company some much-needed legitimacy (and within a few years after that, some actual income.)

Looking to the future, the line's entry from Phoenix to Wickenburg (BNSF-owned at the moment) points in exactly the right direction to make their PHX-LV connection very feasible. We'll leave the question of bridging over the Grand Canyon for another time though.

I see Phoenix and Tucson as an obvious expansion, those cities have huge populations with plenty of Vegas travelers I am sure. The Salt Lake City expansion interests me in that I would not expect Las Vegas to be a huge destination for SLC residents. Although a Salt Lake City to Denver route seems reasonable, I would think that building a high speed train out there would be difficult as there are mountainous areas that separate those cities. I think it is so important that they build the Palmdale station during the first segment of construction, that will give the whole route a much more legitimate start as that city is much closer to Los Angles and is accessible by Union Station via the Metrolink although I do think California High Speed rail will really help their business if it ever materializes.

Not a very favorable write-up, but I expect such a position from Heritage, which of course is as conservative as Politico or HuffPo is liberal. It's an interesting analysis:

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/22/xpr ... r-bailout/

Outdated forecast data containing rosy economic assumptions and signaling potential cost overruns plagues the planned $6.9 billion XpressWest high-speed rail project connecting Victorville, CA, to Las Vegas, NV, according to a new Reason Foundation report. If it fails, the seriously flawed plan could put taxpayers on the hook for billions.

Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation, explains:

XpressWest is being marketed as a private project. Yet nearly all of the money to build it would come from a taxpayer-guaranteed loan of up to $6.5 billion. If the train fails, the company defaults on the loan and taxpayers are stuck with the losses. Politicians should learn from Solyndra, which was actually a much smaller loan than this would be. This train is far too risky to gamble taxpayer money on.

This is not the first time the alarm has sounded, calling this project’s financial viability into question.

RocketJet wrote:I see Phoenix and Tucson as an obvious expansion, those cities have huge populations with plenty of Vegas travelers I am sure. The Salt Lake City expansion interests me in that I would not expect Las Vegas to be a huge destination for SLC residents. Although a Salt Lake City to Denver route seems reasonable, I would think that building a high speed train out there would be difficult as there are mountainous areas that separate those cities. I think it is so important that they build the Palmdale station during the first segment of construction, that will give the whole route a much more legitimate start as that city is much closer to Los Angles and is accessible by Union Station via the Metrolink although I do think California High Speed rail will really help their business if it ever materializes.

The Las Vegas to SLC railway already exists, and was part of the Amtrak Desert Wind route until sometime in the 90's. Shut down due to low ridership I imagine. Amtrak's California Zephyr goes between SLC and Denver everyday.

I'm just hoping they build all the way to Palmdale before this project is considered a failure. Could be a great beginning for US HSR.

Does anyone know what the status is over the loan they requested? How clear is the timeline concerning when the Palmdale-Victorville Section of the line will be built?

Last word on the loan in the Milestones page is dated from July 26:

The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board unanimously adopts a resolution to support the XpressWest RRIF loan application.

Nothing beyond that on the website.

The VegasInc website has an interview with Tony Marnell, one of the partners in XpressWest, dating back to September 3. The interviewer asked Marnell about the status of the loan, and the answer (to me, at least) looks evasive:

Let’s start with an update. What’s the status of XpressWest’s $5.5 billion loan application through the Federal Railroad Administration?

We’re in continual Q&A regarding the loan application. Like any large loan, there are tedious, extensive amounts of information that the lender wants to have, which we certainly appreciate. We’ve been in that mode vigorously for the last 90 days. We’re at the point of making sure we have the right backup, the right information.

It’s not that complex, but everybody’s doing this for the first time. It’s the first high-speed rail loan in the country. Anytime you do something for the first time — we’re starting a new industry and this is the first product in that new industry in America — it requires, and should mandate, a thorough and comprehensive application.

Are there any other major hurdles to clear before construction can begin?

None.

Assuming the loan is approved, when do you expect to break ground?

We’d break ground in a meaningful way in six to eight months, but we’d immediately begin hiring what would amount to thousands of people in engineering, surveying, soils testing and the company’s infrastructure — marketing departments, procurement departments — like you would when you’re gearing up any multibillion-dollar project. Las Vegas will be the base. …

There's also a question about possible private investment.

Are there private investors funding the project? Who are they and how much are they investing?

We’re putting up $1.5 billion. I can’t disclose who they are right now. We’re under confidentiality agreements with the U.S. government. They know all of this information, and we have agreed that we are not going to go through the loan process in the public.

If it’s decided on, it will become public information. If we’re denied the loan, as a private company, we don’t think we should have to disclose it.

It’s not a public opinion poll. It’s a real project and has a real purpose for a real need. It’s being presented as a business proposition under existing laws and statutes. There has not been one penny, and there is not one penny intended, of taxpayer or grant money in the application at this point in time. It’s private capital and infrastructure financing instruments. …

So its a little sketchy, what do all of you think about the public opinion towards such a project? Victorville was not good enough so they extended it to Palmdale...is Palmdale good enough, especially considering that the rest of the California High Speed Rail corridor is still years away?

RocketJet wrote:So its a little sketchy, what do all of you think about the public opinion towards such a project? Victorville was not good enough so they extended it to Palmdale...is Palmdale good enough, especially considering that the rest of the California High Speed Rail corridor is still years away?

Well, even though it would require a slow Metrolink ride, Palmdale will get you from LA to Vegas on an all-rail routing. That counts for a lot in terms of attracting passengers.

In fact, if XpressWest is completed before Palmdale-LA HSR, I wouldn't be surprised if XpressWest made a deal with Metrolink to sell XpressWest tickets which included the Metrolink trip.

That would certainly be good business as far as working with what they have, such an experiment of having a high speed rail line in the west could be interesting, I really hope the Phoenix to Vegas line is built, such a line should be heavily used by the sheer amount of air traffic that is currently used on between those destinations

The Federal loan is taking a long time to approve.