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Post by rubbertoe on Oct 13, 2010 8:18:15 GMT -8
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Post by James Fujita on Oct 13, 2010 10:09:49 GMT -8
Interesting idea, although I'm not entirely clear what Amtrak's involvement is in all of this or what it ought to be.
Seems like a train like this ought to be a private charter, and certainly only seasonal.
Also, if Amtrak can run a train into the Mojave Desert, why can't it run a train (not necessarily the same train) all the way into Vegas?
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Post by bobdavis on Oct 13, 2010 20:47:03 GMT -8
Yes, it's a private charter. I know some private car owners and belong to a railway enthusiast group that owns an Amtrak-certified passenger car, and have learned that setting up any trip like this takes a lot of behind-the-scenes planning and a lot of $$$. As far as I know, there's no reason why Amtrak couldn't run a train to Vegas, it just takes the aformentioned planning and money. Also, Mojave (the town) and the Mojave National Preserve are two different places. Kelso (in the MNP) is a "whistle stop" northeast of Barstow, a long way from the town of Mojave (which is north of Lancaster). Back in the 1960's, I rode a special train out to Cima, the next station beyond Kelso. Cima had more cows than people until our train stopped there, but that was as far as we could go with one crew. Any further and Union Pacific would have needed two train crews, making the trip quite a bit more expensive. I could also mention that Amtrak did have daily service to Las Vegas until about 15 years ago, and passenger train advocates have been complaining about the discontinuance ever since.
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Post by James Fujita on Oct 14, 2010 2:13:18 GMT -8
heh. I'm proud to say that my family and I took the Desert Wind from Los Angeles to Denver and back. It was a nice trip, although a bit slow. It suffered from the same "Union Pacific don't care about Amtrak" syndrome that still plagues Amtrak West, so we ended up with too much Utah and not enough Colorado.
As I recall, the problem with restoring Vegas service is a little more complicated than finding funding and finding train cars. UP STILL doesn't like adding passenger trains to its precious network, for one thing.
That article on the Mojave train definitely needed another run by the copy editors.
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