Virgin plans to connect Las Vegas and Southern California with electric high-speed rail

Virgin has unveiled plans to build a fully electric, high-speed train that would connect Southern California to Las Vegas by 2023.

Developed by company subsidiary Virgin Trains USA, the 170-mile (273-kilometre) high-speed line will link Las Vegas, Nevada with Victorville, California – a town about an hour-and-a-half drive northeast from Downtown Los Angeles.

Virgin Trains USA revealed that construction is expected to commence this year and complete in 2023 in a presentation to the Board of County Commissioners in December 2019. The dates, however, are currently pending approval from the US Federal Railroad Administration.

News of the timeline comes a month after the state of California approved a $3.25 billion (£2.48 billion) bond request for the project, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. The train line is expected to cost $4.8 billion (£3.66 billion).

Las Vegas and Southern California train to take 90 minutes

If approved, the line will be constructed along the US north-south highway Interstate 15 (I-15) that passes through much of California, and a track running east-west in Nevada.

Trains will be fully electric and will travel at 180 miles (290 kilometres) per hour and take less than 90 minutes. Virgin Trains USA said the journey will cost less than driving or flying.

The high-speed rail forms the latest project for Virgin, which has developed a similar system in Florida, called Brightline. Photograph by Patrick Hamilton, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The eastern end of the line is expected to terminate a mile south of the Las Vegas Strip, which is host to numerous casinos and hotels. Two stations will also be built as part of the project.

Nevada's Department of Business Director Terry Reynolds said that equipment and materials are already being secured for the scheme, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Project modelled on Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach rail

The project is largely based on Virgin's 70-mile (112-kilometre) system that links Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Known as Brightline, the Florida train is diesel-electric and was completed in January 2018.

Virgin Trains USA, which plans to operate under the name Brightline until the middle of this year, also plans to develop a high-speed rail line from Orlando to Cocoa, Florida – a town on the east coast – which would be built alongside State Road 528.

Virgin Group Ltd is a British multinational venture capital company, which also has stakes in international airways Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Galatic for space ventures.

Virgin Hyperloop One is also developing high-speed rail lines that are fully electric on behalf of Virgin. In 2017 a full-size trial was carried out successfully north of Downtown Las Vegas at its DevLoop test site.

Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock unless stated otherwise.

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