Drain the swamp...? Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja!

“And after the inauguration, Mr. Ruffin would ask for a favor. Would the president help revive a dormant project of great importance to a lot of powerful people in Las Vegas — a bullet train that would whisk gamblers from Southern California to The Strip in less than 90 minutes?

This past March, a panel composed largely of Trump appointees gave the train company permission to sell $1 billion in tax-free bonds to private investors. Authorities in California and Nevada fell in line, approving additional bonds. Trains could begin running as soon as 2024.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...las-vegas.html

Whatever, at least the Trump administration took an interest in ONE rail project... and it connects two major metro areas, it is certainly not a train to nowhere.

The critics who say it's not "true high speed" are missing the point. We have a private company building a whole new rail line, grade separated, to 21st-century standards with only a limited investment of taxpayer money. If Brightline can deliver this rail line for the cost they have promised, they will set a new standard and show CHSRA how it's done.

Victorville is not the middle of nowhere?

It is clearly the first phase of a train from LA-LV and has independent utility. Brightline has strongly indicated their desire to enter the LA Basin via Palmdale or Rancho Cucamonga.

Just like the California high speed rail project connecting to the LA basin, after its current terminus in Bakersfield.

I'm not knocking CHSRA for anything except its outlandish cost. It will obviously be a successful train line if it is ever completed.

I suppose its not "true high speed rail" in the same way most of the German I-C-E network isn't... average top speed being in the 160mph range. By American standards this thing will be a bullet train. It doesn't really need to go 220mph to be a wild success, after all LV is a pleasure/leisure destination not a business power center where travels need to be whisked between at the highest possible speeds. The current plan is pretty darn good, we should all be thankful they aren;t moving forward with some watered down diesel garbage with a planned op speed of 120 or something.

^ This is my point... a 150mph train that runs frequently on dedicated tracks is HUUUUGE compared to an Amtrak train that tops out at 79mph, only runs twice a day, and is usually delayed due to freight interference.

I also think part of the decision w/r/t design speed has to do with onerous Federal regs that increasingly kick in with more speed (Class 7/8 track). With that said, the line is in the middle of wide open desert, so I see no reason why the engineers wouldn't design an alignment that can support higher speeds in the future, at least outside of Victorville/Barstow/Las Vegas areas.

Images from Brightline's web page about 'Brightline West'
https://www.gobrightline.com/west-coast-expansion
https://i.imgur.com/9qDOZM5.png
https://i.imgur.com/Ra7sytV.png

Some updates:

• Top speed has changed to 200 mph. Don't know how they're going to achieve that within the ROW for I-15, which is a 80 mph (or less?) road.
• Total trip time is 3 hours, which I assume means the full distance from LA to LV?
• They are no longer talking about connecting LA to 'Southern California' but say explicitly 'Los Angeles,' so I guess they'll be going forward with their extension pretty quickly after the first phase to Victorville is done. Probably a phased opening like in Florida.

Overall, I am liking the way this is going. Brightline is being proactive and getting into LA on their own, and not relying on California HSR. That solves so many issues. I hope the name 'Brightline West' is not here to stay, though. I think just Brightline is enough.

https://i.imgur.com/sKluwQC.png

That's sounds wonderful! I really hope if they extending to Phoenix or Tucson, AZ. I would like to go on Brightline Trains from Phoenix to Las Vegas. I won't take a flight anymore. It is very expensive.

The tracks aren't going in the highway median, they will be on the north side of the interstate so they are free to build wider curves (and construction access is much easier since you're not surrounded by active traffic). The approved alignment, inherited from DesertXpress, will also diverge from the interstate in several points to avoid built up areas (Barstow, Primm, etc).

Feel free to nerd out here: https://railroads.dot.gov/elibrary/d...ed-alternative

Glad to see they've bumped the top speed to 200mph. Weird that the renderings do not include overhead wires or pantagraphs. I hope they are not planning some weird, unproven battery-electric system.

Love the green color scheme, looks very cool.

Overall can’t wait to see it break ground :cheers:

They might be repeating what they did in Florida, green, blue, red, pink, and orange color schemes - if not more.

No need to worry about that. It's pretty common for artists impressions of electric trains to not include the pantograph or show overhead wires. We know this project will be OCS powered electric trains, no question about it.

On a side note, without pouring back into the DOT pdfs, I was thinking there was in fact going to be a long section of median running. Am I wrong about that?

I don't know, its okay. Maybe all lime green or cool hombre shades making a kind of gradient down the length of the train, but I'm probably thinking about that kind of stuff much more than the average person. A scheme that referenced gaming would make sense, like a face card... black, red, blue, yellow... supergraphics... that kind of thing. Not sure what random green stripes has to do with LV or the desert for that matter. They need to have some fun with it.

Yes, they will add more trains set later this year or next few years. They will delivery from Sacramento, CA.

Yeah I don't think there are any median sections between Victorville and LV. Most of the line is to the north (or west) of I-15 with a little bit on the east (or south) side.

Even in urban Vegas they are staying to the side of the highway and just building up on a long tall viaduct that flies over all the ramps (and cantilevers slightly over the southbound lanes).

Man, I wasted so much time looking at these plans.
Thanks for the link! :tup:

The date in the plan sheets says 2013, and while it is safe to assume many things have been changed since then (there are some comments from Brightline officials discussing sections of running in the median, even though there are no such sections in these plans), I think these give a great feel for what to expect.
As ardecila said, the horizontal curves are gentler than the freeway they are following. There are 3-4 cases where they achieve this by switching sides on the freeway during a curve, so that they can get a couple hundred extra feet added to the radius of the their curve - but mostly it is done by cutting corners or straying from the alignment just enough.
What surprised me was that the vertical curves seemed to be about the same as the freeway. I know roadway designers have to plan for stopping sight distances and all of that, but I didn't realize how much flatter that made vertical curves. (Perhaps this is another point in favor of autonomous cars? Self-driving cars with faster reaction speeds could be trusted to slow down faster, thus roads could be constructed to less rigorous standards and safe costs - but I digress!) From the profile view, this train route looks like a roller coaster! Up and down, sometimes getting steeper than 4-5% (on the steeper end for a freeway). When there is a bridge over the freeway, the train tracks will often be built up high on a bridge over the road bridge! There is one location I saw where, in order to get over the freeway, the HSR tracks will be ~65 feet up in the air!
I've talked with friends who have ridden the Shinkansen in Japan, and they say that it feels very much like an airplane - when the train is going down a hill, you can feel it in your stomach. Just by looking at these plans, I think Brightline is going to have a similar suit of sensations.

Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Brightline will need to adhere closely to these plans or they will void the Environmental Impact Survey from DesertXpress. Redoing it will add millions of dollars in cost and several years to the project, especially because CEQA in California is much stricter than the Federal requirements.

So I don't expect any big changes to the alignment...

And yeah, some of these grades are steep even for high speed rail. They will need to use lightweight equipment like Euro/Asian rail (none of those heavy-ass American style trains) and it certainly means this line will never be suitable for freight service.

I'm very excited about this project if only for it being a key starter section towards the larger vision of HSR expanding as far north as Salt Lake City... If only us Albertans could get our HSR project built and then get it extended south... ;-)