Construction Begins on High-Speed Rail Line Between SoCal and Las Vegas

I mean, the American people didn’t abandon them. GM used monopolistic practices and corporate collusion to basically make most major cities an offer they couldn’t refuse. The gotcha, of course, is that they were being offered a “sweet deal” on a transit mode that is overall less effective for major passenger corridors in large cities, and have shorter average service lives, and use consumable parts much more heavily:

The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to the convictions of General Motors (GM) and related companies that were involved in the monopolizing of the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines(NCL) and subsidiaries, as well as to the allegations that the defendants conspired to own or control transit systems, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. This suit created lingering suspicions that the defendants had in fact plotted to dismantle streetcar systems in many cities in the United States as an attempt to monopolize surface transportation.

Between 1938 and 1950, National City Lines and its subsidiaries, American City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California (through a subsidiary), Federal Engineering, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks—gained control of additional transit systems in about 25 cities. Systems included St. Louis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Oakland. NCL often converted streetcars to bus operations in that period, although electric traction was preserved or expanded in some locations. Other systems, such as San Diego's, were converted by outgrowths of the City Lines. Most of the companies involved were convicted in 1949 of conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce in the sale of buses, fuel, and supplies to NCL subsidiaries, but were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the transit industry.

I’d love to do the Am track one day looks like a great way to see it all.

I have wanted to AmTrak the country for like 18 years now. The thing is it's just not an appealing experience for the cost. A trip from Florida to California would take 120 hrs/4.25 days one-way. That means that someone would need to take 9 days for a round trip if things match up perfectly. The other thing is that tickets can be quite expensive. The same trip is ~$550 one way. So, we'd have someone spending 7 vacation days and $1100 on transportation alone to sit on a train in coach for nearly the entire time without even getting to see their destination. Say you wanted to stay a week in California. There go another 5 vacation days for a total of 12 vacation days spent, with about half of them spent on a train in coach. You'd also have to add in the costs of staying and touring California, which can be fairly cheap if you know someone there or very expensive if you don't.

Very few people in the US have the time off and the financial means to make this an appealing trip.

There is a slight problem with this and it depends on how you view the world.

If only things that are profitable should be built then great.

But things like railways are built and effectively the most profitable lines subsidise the least profitable. But the system as a whole is more profitable because it is larger. But if companies come in and take all the icing off the cake for themselves. The rest of the cake looks a lot less interesting and might not get developed.

I do think a couple of lines that go directly past cars stuck in traffic are going to blow peoples minds and can be good PR though.

I was amazed at the trains in Chicago, the railway capital of America, probably the world at one point. The train was cruising along and I kept looking at cars and saying "the bloody cars are going faster than us! What kind of train is this?" The answer I got was "A good one, at least for America"

12 billion dollars for a train line hundreds of miles long and possibly rebuilding some bridges is pretty cheep. And it isn't like casinos waste a lot of water to run compared to other economic activities.

And, honestly, Las Vegas isn't that unsustainable except for the heat and we already have ways of dealing with it.

High speed rail is expensive to build in developed and incorporated areas. That’s pretty much a universal truth, unless you get all CCP about labor and land rights.

I agree that Vegas shouldn't exist, but the price tag makes sense? It's in California, there are probably a lot of environmental measures that will be taken during the construction process which I fully support happening.

I’m sure people will hate me for saying this, but we should be phasing out unsustainable cities like Las Vegas, not giving them incentives to build up even more.

I live in Vegas (an am partly excited about the train because, well it's a train and it will make it easier to visit family) and fully agree. This place is uninhabitable for 3 months out of the year without technological assistance (air conditioning). But I think this applies to many places both too hot and too cold. Even Southern California has no water without massive exploitation of the Colorado River. Our population is simply too much for the planet.

Then send it over the rock pile into Denver!

Not often I see a dark tower reference in the wild

There are 2 million people that live here and many don't have anything to do with gambling. Your comment is like calling Hawaii a bunch of surfers.

It's deadly in Florida because people drive around the barriers at level crossings. That won't be a problem here because there won't be any level crossings.

Yeah but, I mean....Florida.

It is going to run in the middle of a highway median, zero railroad crossings. Have you even read any articles on it?