A Los Angeles-Los Vegas route would probably be the only place on earth that a maglev train would be fiscally viable. However, given Amtrak's current financial situation, I side with David Gunn when he says that the high speed rail is just not going to happen in our lifetimes.
But if some savvy private investor had a few billion dollars they didn't know what to do with, I think that building a maglev from Los Angeles to Las Vegas would be money well spent.
Imagine leaving Union Station in Los Angeles and arriving in Vegas 20 minutes later!
By the way, I just checked the Wall Street Journal poll http://discussions.wsj.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=wsjvoices&nav=messages&msg=2918 and the results are 71% for keeping the so-called money-losing routes and 29% for eliminating them.
Despite The Journal's conservative attitude about Amtrak, they did publish a story in yesterday's paper, (Aug. 11 I believe) hyping train travel as a "booming" mode of transportation.
[This message has been edited by Chucky (edited 08-12-2003).]
[This message has been edited by Chucky (edited 08-12-2003).]
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