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Construction begins on high-speed rail between Vegas and California

Brightline west will make the trip between las vegas and rancho cucamonga in a little over two hours.

Privately owned train company Brightline held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a $12 billion high-speed rail project connecting Las Vegas and Southern California.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg joined company leaders and other officials for the start of construction in Las Vegas.

Brightline West benefits from $3 billion in federal funds from President Biden ’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Trains could be running as soon as early 2028, in time for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Travelers have a lot to look forward to. Electric trains will depart every 45 minutes from a Las Vegas station south of the city’s storied Strip and a Southern California station in Rancho Cucamonga, a Los Angeles suburb about 40 miles east of downtown.

Traveling at up to 186 mph — faster than any other train in the United States — Brightline West trains will make the 218-mile trip in about 2 hours and 10 minutes.

“At long last, we’re building the first high-speed rail project in our nation’s history,” President Biden said of Brightline West in December. “We’ve been talking about this project for decades. Now we’re really getting it done.”

Other high-speed railroads that would carry passengers at 200 mph and faster are in the works in California, Texas and the Pacific Northwest.

“The bottom line here is we changed the trajectory,” Buttigieg said in an interview Monday. More than $30 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has been awarded to date and more is on the way, he added.

The success of the Brightline West project could influence how future rail projects receive funding.

“It won’t be easy but I think they have all of the right things in place to get this done,” Buttigieg said.

Speed is Brightline West’s main selling point. Driving between Rancho Cucamonga and Las Vegas takes at least three hours without traffic, according to Google Maps.

“You’ll be sitting there flying by on Brightline looking at all these brake lights on the highway and thinking, ‘It sucks to be you,’” said Jim Mathews, CEO of the Rail Passengers Association , said on Friday. “That’s what it’s going to be like for all those people trying to get from greater Los Angeles to Las Vegas.”

Brightline West trains will run along Interstate 15 for nearly their entire journey. They will make two intermediate stops in California: one in Hesperia and one in Apple Valley.

Travelers coming from Los Angeles will have the option of riding Metrolink , Southern California’s regional rail system, to the Rancho Cucamonga station located near the junction of Interstates 10 and 15. The trip between downtown Los Angeles and Rancho Cucamonga takes at least 50 minutes by car without traffic, or 1 hour and 15 minutes on the train.

“Getting it to a juncture where pretty much everybody who passes into the I-15 corridor goes through is a massive benefit from a climate perspective, a congestion perspective, and an economic perspective,” Buttigieg said.

Future plans include a direct connection for Brightline West to Los Angeles Union Station as part of the separate California High-Speed Rail project.

Speed won’t be the only reason to ride Brightline West.

Brightline’s Florida operation connecting Miami to Orlando opened in September , giving future customers out West an idea of what to expect. Before Brightline’s debut, Amtrak held a monopoly on intercity passenger rail travel for decades.

Stations are spacious with comfortable areas to sit, bars selling craft cocktails and a lounge for premium passengers. Onboard, travelers enjoy assigned seats and fast WiFi. Attendants come down the aisle serving snacks and drinks throughout the trip.

Brightline told investors that it carried a record 258,307 passengers in March, and that one in three of its trains were nearly full.

Brightline’s strong ridership, though slower than initially promised to investors, makes a strong case for building fast and frequent trains between major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Brightline West estimates that 6 million people will ride its trains during the first full year of operation, according to a federal environmental assessment . That number is projected to grow to as many as 9.2 million people within a decade.

The company estimates that, without the train, three-quarters of its riders would drive between Southern California and Las Vegas. Another 15 percent would fly, and the balance would not make the trip at all.

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The Maya Train Will Get You to All of Yucatán’s Best Spots. But Not Yet.

In December, the train began running on its first route through Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. On a five-day journey a few months later, the author encountered enthusiasm, and scheduling hiccups.

By Elisabeth Malkin

Elisabeth Malkin has been visiting the Yucatán Peninsula for three decades.

I stepped off the platform at the gleaming new Maxcanú train station, eager to see the magnificent Maya archaeological site of Uxmal. All I needed was a taxi to take me there, a trip of about 30 miles away.

There are no taxis, said the stationmaster, as we stood on the polished limestone floors of the high-ceilinged station, which was cool and breezy despite the brilliant late-morning sun outside. And I was the third person in two weeks to get off at Maxcanú expecting to reach Uxmal, he said.

I was midway through a five-day trip to explore the brand-new Maya Train and several of its destinations in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico . Designed to run 965 miles (1,554 kilometers) around a loop of 34 stations when completed, the train will whisk passengers in cool comfort through colonial cities, archaeological sites, splashy resorts and tropical forests.

Now I was stunned. Wrangling a taxi has never been a problem in Mexico. But the drivers gathered in the main square of Maxcanú offered only beat-up vans that hopscotch through small towns, where I might or might not find a taxi to Uxmal. The next van was leaving in 45 minutes.

Yucatán’s layers of history have long held me spellbound. During earlier car trips, I have clambered up deserted Maya temples and palaces, stepped into the cool naves of massive 16th-century churches and visited restored haciendas, testaments of the ostentation — and hardship — of the peninsula’s 19th-century plantation economy. Traveling by train, I thought, would allow me to steep myself in more of that history.

But as I found in Maxcanú, a train won’t necessarily get you to where you want to go.

During my February trip, I traveled on the only route then available, an east-west leg that opened in December and runs from Cancún to Mérida, and then south through the port city of Campeche to the Maya site of Palenque (a short route between Cancún and Playa del Carmen opened last month, with three trains a day). I encountered scheduling confusion, unfinished stations and a dearth of trains — just two operating daily each way between Cancún and Campeche, and only one to Palenque. Overnight sleepers and special dining trains seem years away.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador considers the Maya Train his showcase development project, and wants to inaugurate the rest of the train before he leaves office on October 1. Based on my experience, that goal seems elusive.

A $29-billion route through the jungle

I started my journey in Cancún, where in the pre-dawn gloom the station hovered like a glowing spaceship. An attendant scanned the ticket I had bought online and a half-dozen more pointed me toward my tourist-class car, which was about a quarter full. I planned to go to Campeche, about 300 miles away, stopping once each day. At 120 kilometers (about 75 miles) an hour, the train covers the route in about six hours, the same as a car. (When construction is complete, the train’s speed should increase to 160 kilometers an hour.)

The car’s wide windows looked out at a wall of low jungle. The blue-green seats were comfortable and there was ample space between the rows. I bought a very good cappuccino at the snack bar, but declined the plastic-wrapped sandwiches. The rest of the merchandise was fruit cups, milk boxes and junk food.

The train will ultimately cost much more than the $29 billion budgeted so far, and it’s not the first time ambitious planners have alighted on the region. Cancún was once a tiny fishing village, selected half a century ago as a tourist hub. Last year 10 million international tourists flew into its airport, more than the airports of Mexico City, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta combined.

But uncontrolled growth has stressed the Caribbean coast’s fragile environment. The Maya Train, scientists warn , will push those problems south, threatening the area’s water supply, its unique system of underground limestone caves and its vast nature reserves.

Mr. López Obrador has charged ahead, handing the train over to the military , and arguing that it will spread Cancún’s wealth and attract new visitors. Mexico received more than 42 million overseas tourists last year and they spent almost $31 billion .

Local governments see an opportunity. “The train will allow people to disperse throughout the peninsula,” said Michelle Fridman, the tourism secretary for Yucatán state, which promotes dozens of attractions far beyond highlights like Mérida and Chichén Itzá .

Now that the train is operating, transport companies will begin to connect stations with lesser-known sites nearby, she said.

It’s fair to ask whether the train is the most effective way to develop the peninsula’s tourism. Tour companies already run trips to many sites from major cities, which are well served by buses. Driving a rental car through most of the area is considered safe , according to U.S. State Department travel guidance .

Route of Mexico’s Maya Train

Canceled trip.

It took two hours (and one time-zone change) to reach Valladolid, a colonial city of handsome streets and ancient churches, where I bought the rest of my tickets at the station. A tourist-class ticket from Cancún to Valladolid costs 472 pesos (around $28) for foreigners and 355 pesos (around $21) for Mexicans. First class, with wider seats, costs 755.50 pesos and 566.50 pesos, and discounts are available for older travelers and residents of the five states along the train’s route. (A first-class bus from downtown Cancún to Valladolid costs between 222 and 344 pesos, depending on the time of day, and takes half an hour longer.)

It was impossible to run the new Maya Train tracks into dense city centers and the Valladolid station, like the rest, was outside the urban core. A waiting bus took disembarking passengers downtown, a 15-minute ride for 35 pesos.

That day I toured Ek Balam , the site of a ninth-century Maya kingdom that is dominated by a 100-foot palace distinguished by a facade of carvings depicting winged warriors, stylized animal features and geometric patterns bordered by giant fangs. Admission to the site includes entry to the X-Canché cenote, one of thousands of limestone sinkholes that were sacred to the Maya.

Later that afternoon, I was wandering through the Museum of Ethnic Clothing, a private collection of traditional dress, embroidery and hats, when a WhatsApp message from the ticket office blinked on my phone. My train scheduled for the following day was canceled.

I decided to deal with the problem in the morning and enjoy the city. As I wandered past the antique shops and boutique hotels of the elegant Calzada de los Frailes, it was clear that Valladolid’s tourism, and the infrastructure to handle it, was well established. The Maya Train is simply an alternative way to reach a city that tourists discovered years ago.

‘We’re on the Tren Maya!’

In the morning, I found that my train had not been canceled, but the station for which I had a ticket, Tixkokob, was closed. I got off instead one stop earlier at Izamal, known for its ocher streets and the giant Franciscan convent of San Antonio de Padua, built atop the ruins of a pyramid.

During the 90-minute ride, I heard widespread enthusiasm among fellow travelers who expressed a willingness to give the train time to work out the kinks. “We’re an experiment,” said Oliva Escobedo Ochoa, 64, who was vacationing from her home in central Mexico.

Leticia Iliassich, 57, who is Mexican, was traveling with her Croatian husband along with relatives from Mexico and Croatia. They had initially been scheduled on an earlier train to Mérida that had been canceled. “We knew that it was a new project,” she said. “We don’t mind.”

The group had already sent a video to friends declaring, “We’re on the Tren Maya!”

At the Izamal station I hitched a 15-minute ride into the town center with a man who had asked me to take his photo alongside the train and his father. From there I negotiated a taxi to Hacienda San Lorenzo Aké, a working hacienda that still turns the fiber from an agave plant called henequén into coarse rope. Global demand for henequén, known as Yucatán’s “green gold,” brought fantastic wealth to the region in the mid-19th century, speckling the peninsula with more than 1,000 haciendas. ( Many are now sumptuous hotels.)

Where geometry, nature and the divine merge

It was during my third day that I found myself stuck in Maxcanú, after a 90-minute train ride from Izamal. The stationmaster, an army captain, offered me a ride to Uxmal, just as he had to the stranded tourists before me.

Eying Uxmal’s 4 p.m. final ticket sale, I accepted.

My situation made it clear just how distant the Maya Train’s promises are for tourists seeking to explore more of Yucatán. In time, that will change, said Ms. Fridman, the tourism secretary. “The idea is to have more hotels along the train line,” she said. “That will happen little by little.”

But Uxmal , among the most stunning of the Maya sites, made up for the inconvenience. Uxmal’s grand buildings are faced with intricate decorative masks as well as friezes in which geometry, nature and the divine merge. New plaques at each structure offer detailed information in English and Spanish, part of the government’s investment in improving displays at Maya sites for the train project.

Most tourists either take day trips by car or bus to Uxmal from Mérida or stay at one of three nearby hotels. As I finished dinner at my hotel, the dining room began to fill up: 47 Polish tourists had arrived.

Panama hats and a cramped van

My plan for the day was to go by taxi to Bécal, a town where Panama hats are woven in limestone caves to keep the fibers soft, and then pick up the afternoon train in nearby Calkiní for the port city of Campeche.

But I spent so much time watching the hat-making demonstration and then fitting my new hat and buying gifts that we set off with little time to reach the station. To my chagrin, I missed the train, the last one of the day.

On Calkiní’s central square, I found a van that was leaving for Campeche. Cost: 65 pesos. Time: about 1 hour and 20 minutes, similar to what I would have spent on the train. Of course, I was trapped in a cramped seat and had to listen to the driver’s choice of sentimental ballads, but I was dropped off in downtown Campeche, close to my hotel.

The next day, I toured the Museum of Maya Archaeology , an expertly curated collection that included haunting jade funeral masks, glyphs and delicate ceramic figures.

José Madrigal, 45, an engineer from Fremont, Calif., was trying to make Maya pottery interesting for his twin sons. The boys had just turned 5 and their birthday present had been a ride on the Maya Train. “They love trains,” Mr. Madrigal said. Then the family moved on, keeping up a brisk clip through the museum. They had another train to catch.

Should you take the train?

Yes, if you are traveling between larger stations. The train also offers a way to get to Palenque, which is harder to reach and has roads with security concerns. Travelers can stow bicycles on board.

To see train times, check the destinations on the website . You cannot buy tickets online more than a week in advance. But when you finally board, the ride is smooth — and the coffee is excellent.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024 .

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

52 Places:  Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

Mumbai:  Spend 36 hours in this fast-changing Indian city  by exploring ancient caves, catching a concert in a former textile mill and feasting on mangoes.

Kyoto:  The Japanese city’s dry gardens offer spots for quiet contemplation  in an increasingly overtouristed destination.

Iceland:  The country markets itself as a destination to see the northern lights. But they can be elusive, as one writer recently found .

Texas:  Canoeing the Rio Grande near Big Bend National Park can be magical. But as the river dries, it’s getting harder to find where a boat will actually float .

Green Energy

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The Las Vegas–LA electric high-speed rail line just broke ground

Brightline West, a future electric high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, broke ground today in Nevada.

On December 6, 2023, Electrek reported that the Biden administration awarded Brightline West $3 billion in funding. The money was part of $6 billion previously earmarked for high-speed rail, and came from the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as part of its Federal-State Partnership Program. (The other $3 billion will go to the public high-speed Los Angeles to San Francisco rail project, which has more than 100 miles of a high-speed line under construction.)

Brightline West will be a privately owned, 218-mile, all-electric high-speed rail service that will include a flagship station in Las Vegas (pictured above), with additional stations in Apple Valley, Hesperia, and Rancho Cucamonga. At speeds of more than 186 miles per hour, trains will take passengers from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, which is 37 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, in just 2 hours and 10 minutes – twice as fast as the normal drive time. 

Florida-based Brightline Holdings is expected to model the Las Vegas-LA rail line on its high-speed route between Miami and Orlando – the US’s only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad.

Brightline West estimates it will remove 3 million cars from I-15 annually, reducing over 400,000 tons of carbon emissions annually. It also anticipates creating an astounding 35,000 union jobs. The federal funding will enable the project, which is aiming to open by 2028, to begin construction.

Rick Harnish, executive director of the national nonprofit High Speed Rail Alliance , said today:

This is a transformational investment in American trains. Getting a high-speed line in operation this decade will show Americans this terrific way to travel. If you have ever felt frustrated by traffic gridlock or airport hassles, a better future just got closer.

Top comment by Daryl Fortney

How can it be ‘privately owned’ if the public paid $3b+ for it? I want free rides at a minimum.

Read more: The US’s busiest rail corridor just got a $16.4B boost – why that’s huge

Photos: Brightline West

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Michelle Lewis is a writer and editor on Electrek and an editor on DroneDJ, 9to5Mac, and 9to5Google. She lives in White River Junction, Vermont. She has previously worked for Fast Company, the Guardian, News Deeply, Time, and others. Message Michelle on Twitter or at [email protected]. Check out her personal blog.

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Work starts on america’s first high-speed train between la, las vegas that could cut travel time in half.

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The much-anticipated construction of the first high-speed passenger train between Los Angeles and Las Vegas got underway Monday — promising to ferry passengers between the two cities in half the the time it now takes to drive through the desert.

The $12 billion project is being spearheaded by Brightline West, which will lay 218 miles of track between a new terminal in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., and another station just south of the Las Vegas Strip by 2028, according to Fortune .

In a statement, Brightline Holdings founder and chair Wes Edens said that breaking ground on the rail on Monday — thanks to $6.5 billion in backing from Joe Biden’s administration, plus $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds — was laying “the foundation for a new industry.”

Brightline also won federal authorization in 2020 to sell $1 billion in similar bonds, Fortune reported.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will reportedly participate in the rail’s Monday groundbreaking.

Upon its completion, Brightline West is expecting to welcome millions of passengers aboard the high-speed train, which will travel up to 200 miles per hour between the two major US cities in just over two hours — about half the time it takes to drive between LA and Vegas.

The high speeds are comparable to Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains, whose network includes nearly 2,000 miles of lines on the country’s four major islands.

Brightline’s estimates are that 11 million passengers will take the electric-powered train one way per year, meaning there will be 30,000 travelers per day. The trains will also have restrooms, Wi-Fi, and food and beverage.

There will also be the option to check luggage — with ticket fares with or without large bags anticipated to be well below the cost of flying across the Mojave Desert.

It wasn’t immedately clear what a ticket aboard Brightline West will cost, though airline costs range between $80 and $230 depending on the time of the year.

Passenger traffic at Sin City’s Harry Reid International Airport set a record of 57.6 million people in 2023, Fortune reported.

Meanwhile, an average of more than 44,000 automobiles per day crossed the California-Nevada state line on Interstate 15 in 2023, according to Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority data — perhaps because of the Super Bowl and Formula 1 Grand Prix race that both took place in Las Vegas last year.

Las Vegas — which has nearly 3 million residents — draws more than 40 million visitors per year.

Brightline CEO Mike Reininger has said the goal is to have high-speed trains operating in time for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

Almost the full distance of the forthcoming train will be along the median of I-15, according to Fortune, which begins in San Diego and runs through Los Angeles before passing through Nevada and into parts of Arizona, Utah, Idaho and Montana.

At this point, only one station stop along the route will take place in San Bernardino County’s Victorville area, per Fortune.

At a later date, Brightline West has said it may add more stops in Palmdale, Calif., and other US metros that are too close to fly between but too far to drive to, though details have yet to be finalized.

The goal is to relieve congestion on I-15, where motorists often get caught in slow-moving traffic.

Representatives for Brightline West did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Florida-based Brightline already operates a Miami-to-Orlando high-speed line, where trains reach speeds of up to 125 miles per hour.

The service launched in 2018 and expanded to include service to the Orlando International Airport in September 2022, Fortune reported. It now offers 16 round trips daily, with one-way tickets to travel the 235-mile-long track going for about $80.

Another fast train in the US include Amtrack’s Acels, which can reach 150 miles per hour while transporting passengers between Boston and Washington, DC — but rails aren’t considered “high speed” unless they top at least 160 miles per hour.

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Train drivers at 16 rail companies to stage fresh strikes in May, Aslef announces

The uk has seen almost two years of industrial action on its railways, with hundreds of millions of journeys cancelled, article bookmarked.

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Fresh travel disruption will impact rail passengers in May as train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a new series of strikes in a bitter, long-running dispute.

Members of the Aslef union will walk out on 7–9 May over pay, and ban overtime for six days from 6 May – the early May bank holiday Monday.

Drivers at c2c, Greater Anglia, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern, Gatwick Express and South Western Railway will strike on 7 May.

On 8 May there will be strikes affecting Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway and West Midlands Trains.

Most operators will not run any trains on strike days.

Although the strikes affect train companies in England, cross-border services to Wales and Scotland are likely to see some knock-on effects.

The union said that after its members voted overwhelmingly in February to continue taking industrial action, it asked the train operating companies to hold talks. Aslef said train drivers have not had an increase in salary for five years, since their last pay deals expired in 2019.

The Independent has contacted the Rail Delivery Group, which represents the train operators, and the Department for Transport for comment.

General secretary Mick Whelan said: “It is now a year since we sat in a room with the train companies and a year since we rejected the risible offer they made and which they admitted, privately, was designed to be rejected.

“We first balloted for industrial action in June 2022, after three years without a pay rise. It took eight one-day strikes to persuade the train operating companies (Tocs) to come to the table and talk. Our negotiating team met the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) on eight occasions – the last being on Wednesday April 26 last year.

“That was followed by the Tocs’ [train operating companies] ‘land grab’ for all our terms and conditions on Thursday April 27 – which was immediately rejected. Since then train drivers have voted, again and again, to take action to get a pay rise.

“That’s why Mark Harper, the transport secretary, is being disingenuous when he says that offer should have been put to members. Drivers would not vote to strike if they thought an offer was acceptable.”

Mr Whelan said the year-old offer of a 4 per cent pay rise followed by a second 4 per cent increase was “dead in the water”.

The latest industrial action comes after thousands of trains were halted during a string of rolling strikes in early April .

Before that, an overtime ban and rolling regional walk-outs hit for nine days from 29 January to 6 February .

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Disneyland Railroad Guided Tour

All aboard .

Get a look into Walt Disney’s love for trains and discover the impact it had on the Disneyland Resort. On this eye-opening, 2-hour tour sure to delight both Disneyland fans and railroad enthusiasts alike, you’ll:

Start with a Treat Enjoy a beverage and a pastry to steam power your journey through Disneyland park.

Step into the Past Walk through the park listening to stories about where the idea behind Walt’s train creations first started. Understand the impact trains had on Walt Disney’s dreams—from animation and film all the way to the theme parks.

Catch a Rare Glimpse of the Disneyland Park Roundhouse This is where “the magic happens” for the historic Disneyland Railroad system and it’s not typically viewed by the public. You’ll learn more about the Imagineers that look after the Disneyland Monorail and trains.

Take a Special Ride During your guided tour, climb aboard Disneyland Railroad’s special Presidential Car, the Lilly Belle. Take the scenic route along the Rivers of America to see landscapes inspired by 4 of America’s majestic rivers: the Mississippi, the Columbia, the Missouri and the Rio Grande. Each are carefully recreated, complete with indigenous rock formations, natural forests, wildlife and 5 picturesque waterfalls.

Riding in the Lilly Belle is dependent on weather and availability.

And Enjoy a Special Keepsake A memento to remember your tour is included.

Know Before You Go

Required Park Reservation and Admission

Reservations

Late arrivals may not be able to join the guided tour. Please be prepared to present your reservation confirmation, photo ID and the credit card provided at the time of booking.

This tour is only available during regular park hours at Disneyland Park.

Cancellations

There is a 24-hour cancellation policy. Full price will be charged and forfeited if Guest cancels within one day or is a no-show for the reservation.

Riding in the Lilly Belle

Guests utilizing wheelchairs must be able to transfer from their mobility device to a wheelchair provided at the attraction.

Guests younger than 14 years of age must be accompanied by an adult 18 years of age or older during the entire experience.

Important Details

All prices, experiences, information and offerings are subject to restrictions, change or cancellation without notice.

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