Article 1
Article 1
4 plans compete to provide LA-Vegas train service
Saturday, May 22, 2010 -
LOS ANGELES - Competition to provide passenger train service between Southern California and Las Vegas is heating up, even though the last such effort to carry fun-seekers across the Mojave Desert was derailed by a lack of customers.
For years, backers of a proposed magnetically levitating train running from Disneyland to Las Vegas have traded barbs with a rival project that would take tourists from the California desert town of Victorville to the Strip on a high-speed train dubbed DesertXpress.
The "maglev" supporters call DesertXpress the train to nowhere because it wouldn’t fully reach Southern California’s population centers. Privately funded DesertXpress counters that a levitating train is a pie-in-the-sky concept that would cost billions in taxpayers’ money.
Recently, two new companies have been touting party trains that promise to shuttle people from downtown Los Angeles to Las Vegas on existing track. They’re fighting with each other over who came up with the idea first as they bid for railroad contracts.
Of the 36.4 million visitors to Las Vegas last year, 26 percent came from Southern California and a majority used ground transportation to get there, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Even with a slump in Las Vegas tourism due to the recession, airline flights fill up on weekends and congestion on the main highway between the two regions is legendary.
On some days, the 270-mile, four-hour drive between Los Angeles and Las Vegas can stretch into a six-hour or longer grind in heavy traffic in the middle of nowhere. In real life, the groom in last year’s bachelor party farce, "The Hangover," probably wouldn’t have been able to speed back to LA in time for his wedding.
"There is demand for another form of transportation since these other forms are so congested," said Mary Riddel, an economics professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Last month, Las Vegas Railway Express announced plans to acquire double-decker passenger cars and convert them into casinos on steel wheels. The proposed "X Train" would feature a sports bar, sushi bar and entertainment to keep passengers amused during the roughly 5½-hour ride. An executive said a round trip on the "X Train" would cost about $99, and floated the possibility of allowing riders to gamble as soon as the train crosses the state line into Nevada. He predicted the train could start running by mid-2011.
A website for the train, featuring the disco funk sound of The Gap Band’s "Party Train," shows computer renderings of the cars’ interiors looking a lot like the lobby of a hotel casino.
Not long after X Train’s announcement, a rival claimed the idea of a luxury train was stolen by X Train executives who looked at the business plan for the Z-Train (Its motto: "Once Z-Train starts, Z-Excitement Never Stops").
"We think we have the best plan, we’re going to be most viable in the long term," said Bruce Richardson, a spokesman for Z-Train.
Richardson said Z-Train plans to target upscale passengers by providing gourmet meals, art exhibits, book signings, fashion shows, among other things. Tickets would cost about the same as airline tickets.
"We believe brand X is looking for a customer looking for a coach seat and a beer," Richardson said. "We’re going to offer something that’ll rival a private jet experience. We believe that our services are going to be so desirable that when the train gets to Las Vegas it’s not about why it took so long to get there, it’s a question of ’Oh, do we have to get off the train already.’"
The companies are locked in a legal battle while they face a bigger challenge in trying to convince Union Pacific Railroad, which owns a majority of the tracks between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, to let them use the right of way. Concerned about growing publicity about the party trains, Union Pacific issued letters last week denying it has had any serious negotiation to allow either company to operate on its tracks.
Union Pacific also does not endorse and will not allow gambling on its tracks, Jerry Wilmoth, the railroad’s general manager of network infrastructure, wrote in the letters.
"If UP doesn’t want gaming then we won’t do it," said Michael Barron, chairman of Las Vegas Railway Express.
The concept of a party train to Nevada’s gambling meccas isn’t new.
Since 1992, a tour agency in Northern California has organized an annual winter "Fun Train" from the San Francisco Bay area to Reno, allowing passengers to dance and drink along the ride.
About six years ago, Amtrak asked the agency to operate a similar train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to revive a train route it ended in 1997 due to declining federal rail subsidies and Amtrak budget problems.
The fun train to Vegas ended after one run.
"We got maybe six cars filled out of nine, we actually lost a lot of money by doing it that year," said Darrel Saunders, groups and reservation manager at Key Holidays.
Despite an advertising campaign in the local press, not enough people signed up, he said. Those who did complained about the six-hour ride and a lack of scenery on the desert route.
"People said there was nothing to see, which there wasn’t," Saunders said. "We tried our best and did everything we could to get it to go. We got it to go but not with the amount of people that we needed to go."
Article 2
Speeding Up By YU SHUJUN In the wake of the global financial crisis, China has amazed the world with the speed of its economic recovery. But what has been even more surprising is the speed of its railway evolution.
The unveiling of the 1,069-km Wuhan-Guangzhou High-speed Railway on December 26, 2009 pushed China's high-speed rail system—the total mileage, the average speed and the technology—to rank first in the world almost overnight.
China formed its ambitious plan to develop a high-speed rail network in 2004, when the country felt the urgency of upgrading its railway system, which had restrained economic development for decades.
It took only four years for the country to roll out its first high-speed rail line—the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway. Since the Beijing-Tianjin line began operating in August 2008, a high-speed intercity rail network has begun spreading across the country.
People have already experienced the convenience brought by high-speed railways in service today. Travel time has been substantially shortened. Compared with air travel, it's cheaper, more comfortable and eliminates cumbersome commutes to and from distant airports. With higher capacity and lower energy consumption, the high-speed train is a low-carbon alternative for a country with a huge population and vast territory.
What's more important are the benefits it brings to the economy. The instant tourism boom in cities along the high-speed lines has already been seen. The high-speed rail network is also essential in balancing regional development. The underdeveloped central and western regions have been and will further be directly linked with coastal cities, which will surely facilitate an industrial transfer from east to west.
This round of high-speed railway construction coincided with the global financial turmoil, which helped the country tide over the crisis. Nearly half of the 4-trillion-yuan ($586-billion) stimulus package has been invested in railway construction, which absorbed the excess labor shed by the shrinking export sector and directly boosted other related industries.
Whether a catalyst amid the crisis or an infrastructural booster to the economy, the high-speed rail network is really a necessity in China. It's no wonder then that U.S. President Barack Obama also outlined plans for a high-speed rail network in the United States. Moreover, the Americans have also shown their interest in China's expertise in high-speed railway technology and construction. China's Ministry of Railways has reached agreements with the state of California and General Electric Co. to help build high-speed rail lines by providing technology, equipment and engineers.
And that brings another but more significant effect—a face-lift of the past image of cheap, low-end "made-in-China" exports and the emergence of China as a tech-savvy innovator.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, China has amazed the world with the speed of its economic recovery. But what has been even more surprising is the speed of its railway evolution.
The unveiling of the 1,069-km Wuhan-Guangzhou High-speed Railway on December 26, 2009 pushed China's high-speed rail system—the total mileage, the average speed and the technology—to rank first in the world almost overnight.
China formed its ambitious plan to develop a high-speed rail network in 2004, when the country felt the urgency of upgrading its railway system, which had restrained economic development for decades.
It took only four years for the country to roll out its first high-speed rail line—the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway. Since the Beijing-Tianjin line began operating in August 2008, a high-speed intercity rail network has begun spreading across the country.
People have already experienced the convenience brought by high-speed railways in service today. Travel time has been substantially shortened. Compared with air travel, it's cheaper, more comfortable and eliminates cumbersome commutes to and from distant airports. With higher capacity and lower energy consumption, the high-speed train is a low-carbon alternative for a country with a huge population and vast territory.
What's more important are the benefits it brings to the economy. The instant tourism boom in cities along the high-speed lines has already been seen. The high-speed rail network is also essential in balancing regional development. The underdeveloped central and western regions have been and will further be directly linked with coastal cities, which will surely facilitate an industrial transfer from east to west.
This round of high-speed railway construction coincided with the global financial turmoil, which helped the country tide over the crisis. Nearly half of the 4-trillion-yuan ($586-billion) stimulus package has been invested in railway construction, which absorbed the excess labor shed by the shrinking export sector and directly boosted other related industries.
Whether a catalyst amid the crisis or an infrastructural booster to the economy, the high-speed rail network is really a necessity in China. It's no wonder then that U.S. President Barack Obama also outlined plans for a high-speed rail network in the United States. Moreover, the Americans have also shown their interest in China's expertise in high-speed railway technology and construction. China's Ministry of Railways has reached agreements with the state of California and General Electric Co. to help build high-speed rail lines by providing technology, equipment and engineers.
And that brings another but more significant effect—a face-lift of the past image of cheap, low-end "made-in-China" exports and the emergence of China as a tech-savvy innovator.
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