LAS VEGAS, Nevada — A company that planned to enter the Southern California-Las Vegas passenger rail market in 2013 with a venture called X Train has resurrected the original idea with several new twists, according to Michael Barron, the impresario behind the project.
Las Vegas Xpress, Inc., expects to procure and refurbish Bombardier multi-level commuter cars and have them running between San Bernardino, Calif., and the gambling mecca by mid-2019. Trains would utilize BNSF Railway and Union Pacific tracks which, until 1997, hosted Amtrak’s Desert Wind and before that, UP’s City of Los Angeles and City of Las Vegas.
Barron tells Trains News Wire contractual details of agreements with Union Pacific, BNSF, and Las Vegas’ Plaza Hotel and Casino for a platform on the site of Amtrak’s former station have yet to be finalized. But, he says, “I can tell you in general terms that we have successfully revisited the opportunity of running this train again.” These plans come almost six years after Barron had said he had plans in place to launch a similar service on Dec. 31, 2013 [See “X Train plans January 2014 start-up,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 28, 2012], a concept he first unveiled in 2010. [See “Conventional Las Vegas-LA passenger train service could launch next year,” Trains News Wire, April 14, 2010.]
Subject to final railroad approval, an initial once-weekly round trip will depart San Bernardino’s former Santa Fe station about noon Friday after passengers make across-platform transfers from Los Angeles and Orange County Metrolink trains, and return to San Bernardino from Las Vegas late Sunday afternoon.
“I can’t quote numbers, but in order to have trains operate with 90 percent on-time arrivals, there are infrastructure improvements we’re going to do on the Class Is,” Barron says, calling the cost of those improvements “a mid-eight figure number.”
He and Union Pacific struck a similar right-of-access deal in 2012. But that deal was contingent on BNSF’s willingness to operate X Train as an Amtrak train and find a place to put it at Fullerton, Calif., two factors to which the railroad never agreed. The Union Pacific portion would have run with Amtrak crews and locomotives, but under a direct priority and compensation arrangement with UP. The new version of the plan would avoid the Fullerton issue by making its connections at San Bernardino. Another major difference from the stillborn 2013 project is that Barron has tapped First Transit, Inc., as his operating liaison with the UP and BNSF, rather than Amtrak.
“We just moved on after eight years of trying to get an agreement with them,” Barron candidly observes, “so about three months ago we decided to hire First Transit, and things have been going smoothly.”
Gregg Baxter, First Transit’s Senior VP of U.S. Rail, tells Trains News Wire that an agreement with Las Vegas Xpress has been finalized. The Cincinnati-based affiliate of First Group, a dominant rail operator in the United Kingdom, runs about 350 bus systems in the U.S. as well as A-train, a commuter rail operation connecting Dallas with Denton County in Texas.
“We’re a contract carrier that will manage all the regulatory requirements, hire operating crews, work with the railroads, and maintain the equipment at San Bernardino and Las Vegas,” says Baxter. “We think the goal to be running by mid-2019 is very doable on the operations and maintenance side.”
Though First Transit will mechanically evaluate the Bombardier cars and locomotives Las Vegas Xpress intends to buy or lease, Baxter says it probably wouldn’t be involved in acquiring and refurbishing the equipment.
The partnership with First Group, which owns Greyhound and the bus terminal near the planned Plaza Hotel station in Las Vegas, also helps Barron solve the “last mile” dilemma. “We already have relationships with all the major (casino and hotel) players and will have bundled pricing packages which include hotel rooms, transfers and possibly even connecting Metrolink tickets,” he says.
He has had exploratory discussions with the Los Angeles-area commuter railroad and is counting on its connections at San Bernardino. “They have 56 stations and 12 million existing riders; we’ve been talking to them for years,” Barron says. “They’re looking for weekend traffic and we can give them that.”
Whether or not Metrolink would be willing to run a dedicated connection from downtown Los Angeles via Fullerton (and potential passenger transfers with Pacific Surfliners from Anaheim and San Diego) as an adjunct to the 11-stop, 1-hour, 46-minute trip from L.A. Union Station on the San Bernardino line is a subject for future discussion.
Barron says the 226-mile journey between San Bernardino and Las Vegas will take 4½ hours, though UP and Amtrak passenger trains couldn’t do it in less than five hours with two stops. But he envisions the trip will be a lot more civilized than being strapped into an airline seat or fighting weekend traffic on Interstate 15 through the Mojave Desert.
The plan is to convert the Bombardier commuter cars “into a luxurious style with new seats on the upper and lower levels. Our design in the half-level up ends is to put a bar on one end and a cocktail ‘hang out’ area on the other. Each car has its own self-contained service area so guests don’t have to wander three or four cars to a cafe.”
He says the train’s onboard service plan is being developed by hospitality and travel-agent activities that his company has been involved in since the earlier attempt to launch the X Train. Las Vegas Xpress’ predecessor company ran excursions on the Santa Fe Southern between Santa Fe and Lamy in New Mexico, sponsored “X Wine Railroad” private-car charters to wineries on scheduled Amtrak trains out of Los Angeles, and developed an upscale “Club X Train” membership clientele from those ventures.
“We have a bunch of ’30-somethings’ who know a lot more about wine than I do and have told us, ‘Mike, your Vegas train needs to do this,’ ” says Barron.
“We have a $600 million insurance tower, which is what the requirements have been for the railroads,” he tells Trains News Wire, adding, “We have invested over $50 million into the project so far. Once we obtain the final [operating authority] contracts from the Class Is, then we will invest another $50 million for access fees, infrastructure, consists, station development, and personnel.”
Shortly after Brightline — now Virgin Trains USA — announced it was acquiring XpressWest’s franchise to build an entirely new passenger railroad between Victorville, Calif., and Las Vegas by 2022 [see “Brightline bets on Vegas,” Trains, December 2018], Barron renamed X Train’s parent from Las Vegas Express, Inc., as part of a penny-stock company reshuffling that involved transferring 20 heritage cars from United Rail, a shortline acquisition, and a liability insurance company. The cars could become part of a “retro” consist in the future.
If Barron overcomes the obstacles that derailed previous efforts, both his and other entrepreneurs, X Train could beat the Florida-based interloper to the punch by three years. Like an enticing desert mirage, the idea of tapping this ready-made passenger rail market has been around for years. “The risk is in the execution,” Barron concludes.
