Brightline West Chooses Train Manufacturer for Speedy Vegas-to-LA Railway Service
High-speed rail between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area is inching closer to becoming a reality. This week, Brightline West unveiled that Siemens Mobility will manufacture the trains for the project.
Siemens, which first introduced electric railways in 1879, has been at the forefront of rail advancements ever since. They created the Transrapid maglev train at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport back in 2002 and helped bring Brightline's South Florida rail system to life in 2018.
The Rail Revolution
The agreement with Siemens Mobility calls for the provision of 10 sets of their upcoming American Pioneer 220 train line alongside the Brightline West route. These seven-car trains, designed for up to 450 passengers and boasting a top speed of 220 mph, will cover the 218-mile journey (mostly travelling in Interstate 15's median) from an area just south of the Las Vegas Strip to Rancho Cucamonga, California. From there, existing light rail will transport passengers the final 40 miles west to Los Angeles.
Brightline West anticipates launching their new rail service in 2028.
Brightline CEO Michael Reininger expressed his enthusiasm for the project, saying, "Just as we revolutionized train travel with our trainsets for Brightline Florida, we are thrilled to pioneer this new realm of manufacturing and development for Brightline West. The major progress we're making will lead to new job opportunities and a new supply chain that will lay the groundwork for a high-speed rail industry coast to coast."
Brightline West marked the project's groundbreaking by hosting US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in Las Vegas last week. The secretary symbolically hammered in a pretend rail spike to signify the start of construction.
The contract also encompasses 30-year rolling stock maintenance, which will be handled by crews at a forthcoming facility in Sloan, Nevada, 25 miles south of the Las Vegas Strip.
Funding the Fast Train
Brightline has yet to secure approximately half of the project's $12 billion budget. They've already received $6.5 billion from the Biden administration, including a $3 billion grant from federal infrastructure funds and approval to market $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds. Additionally, they obtained federal authorisation in 2020 to sell $1 billion in similar bonds.
Though the trains will halve the four-hour drive across the Mojave Desert, and reduce the number of people travelling by car each year by 50 million, Brightline founder Wes Edens told the Los Angeles Times in March that his company "will eventually charge more than $400 for a round trip from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga."
Considering a one-hour journey on light rail, this is still more than twice as long as the average flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, which costs $75 less than Brightline's projected roundtrip fare.
Several high-speed rail endeavours have met with failure in the US due to its lower cost of driving and more dispersed population centers compared to Europe, where such initiatives are widespread and profitable.
Discussions about a Vegas-LA bullet train can be traced back to 2005, when Tony Marnell II, the founder of the Rio, was unable to make his proposed XpressWest system to Victorville, California a reality.
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Source: www.casino.org
