15 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

Almost seems too good to be true, like an April Fools joke a few weeks late. It's still April after all.

From URPA:

Today, April 27, 2010, a new, privately funded and privately operated intercity passenger train is being announced, slated to begin operations during the Christmas season of 2011.

Full text of URPA's This Week at Amtrak here.

[steve4031]

This is interesting. Domes and daylight crossing of cajon pass!

[The Dutchman]

Reading the articles, it appears that one option is to charge a $99 return rail fare. This for truly luxury experience. Yup, it is entirely possible. How this works is that the passengers are "delivered" to a specific casino, and the casino then pays the true rail fare back to the train operator. The casino presumably makes it back and more in the monies spent at the tables. This is a perfectly common arrangement with today's charter bus companies doing casino runs.

[steve4031]

They will lose money on me. I don't gamble. But I'm gonna ride that train

[KevinKorell]

Z-Train is not to be confused with the X-Train, which in turn is not the DesertXpress but yet another idea. From Las Vegas, NV Sun, 4/14/10:

It’s not as fast, but this train could hit the rails sooner

As two companies compete to be the first to provide high-speed rail service between Las Vegas and Southern California in the not too distant future, a third is saying it will have a train click-clacking along next year. Las Vegas Railway Express will provide conventional passenger rail service to and from Los Angeles on existing tracks, its executives say.

Again, with Z-Train the "two companies" are now three. Article is here.

Woudln't it be nice to have a RailFest in Las Vegas, and have to choose between three companies for the two directions of travel?

[KevinKorell]

Letter to the Editor in Las Vegas, NV Sun, 4/17/10:

X-Train a smart short-term solution

The Wednesday article in the Las Vegas Sun by Rick Velotta about the Las Vegas Railway Express, “It’s not as fast, but this train could hit the rails sooner,” was a surprise.

Read more here.

[jis]

Woudln't it be nice to have a RailFest in Las Vegas, and have to choose between three companies for the two directions of travel?

They'll be lucky if at least one survives the ravages of reality.

[The Dutchman]

I will make a bold prediction here:

Unless the train operators founder on gross mis-management (which is unlikely, judging by their business plans) ALLof the operations will both survive and prosper! Astonishing? Not really. The bulk of historical customers to LV arrive by air, both common carrier and air charter (most by carrier). These carriers have drastically slashed the number of flights and the seat capacities into LV., due to matters of fuel costs and leasing problems. So: there is a serious capacity shortage to move passengers into the casinos.

The casinos will counter with two solutions: (1) subsidize bus charter trips, and (2) put together their own air charter flights. It will not meet future demand. Special-purpose rail will. So the casinos will be subsidizing these rail carriers in order to get customers to LV. Unless the rail operators screw it up, or unless the track owners kick them off, these special-purpose trains will become a money mill. (And for those of you who don't gamble, they really do not mind if you buy a deep-subsidized ticket: you add tourist volume and the numbers work for all the players. So, enjoy!).

Edited by The Dutchman, 29 April 2010 - 07:47 AM.

[KevinKorell]

Kind of reminiscent of what is happening in Atlantic City with ACES --- 3 casinos subsidizing rail service to bring in their high end gamblers from a particular market.

[ICGsteve]

Kind of reminiscent of what is happening in Atlantic City with ACES --- 3 casinos subsidizing rail service to bring in their high end gamblers from a particular market.

There has been serious questions raised about where the Las Vegas casino business model goes from here. Obviously they made a huge and expensive mistake with going after families, followed by the devastating Great Recession, and now as the recession eases they find consumers pockets far less easy to pick. I think that they don't have any choice but to band together and do something big, like rail. They have recently opened a lot of space that needs customers to utilize. The operators need to pull every trick they can think of to get bodies into town, and once they are do their best to part them with their money. This is what the cruise lines are doing, getting people on with very low fares, and then adding extra charges for nearly everything. Come to think of it, so are the airlines.

I have no idea if the casino owners are part owners of this venture, but they will surely be involved at some point, either as owners or as ticket buyers.

Edited by ICGsteve, 30 April 2010 - 01:33 AM.