It must have moved way beyond planning if Talgo built a trainset for the service. I'm guessing they did not just build it and hope for the best?
Would be about the right timeframe. Checking one of the annual financial reports, the $300 million mortgage on NY Penn Station to provide cash was taken out in June, 2001 which was near the end of the Warrington era. Gunn took over in May, 2002. But there may have been another emergency loan in 2002 or 2003 as Amtrak teetered on the brink back then.
So Gunn pulling the plug in 2002 would match the timeframe. Too bad, as the 2007 report shows that starting a LA to Vegas corridor service is really not that expensive. Which is why X-Train pursued it (or used it as an excuse to get investor bucks). Some of the recommended improvements on the Southern California end have been done, so the costs to starting a service are lower than they were in 2007.
Never realized how close a train from LA to LAS came to fruition. With a 5 hour travel time, especially with the nasty traffic jams these days, that is a very competitive travel time. When the new bi-levels arrive, maybe they can use the current Surfliner Cars to start the LAS service. Getting to Vegas is becoming more of a joke these days by car and air planes. A dedicated train service to LAUS -> LAS would probably do very well, but in my opinion, its going to have to start at LAUS and not Riverside or Victorville as some of the alternative options. If I'm taking the train to Vegas, I'd like to take it all the way via say Metrolink or Pacific Surfliner to LAUS and transfer. Getting to Riverside or Victorville from LA or OC is no walk in the park driving on the congested freeway. Also, with free covered parking at the OC stations and covered security reasonable paid parking at LAUS, the train probably has a better potential from LAUS than the IE terminus.
The route was supposed to be LA -> LAS only. No Utah. According to the document provided by afigg, the problem with the Desert Wind's dismal performance was that it was a LD train. The new service that almost started and any future train looks like its going to be a corridor train that is timed for the convenience of SOCAL and Southern Nevada. Any future train to UT would probably have to be supported by UT, NV or a combination of both and timed for a corridor run between their two cities.
My understanding is that the operation was also hampered by Amtrak having to keep space blocked off Las Vegas-Los Angeles for through passengers. Put another way, Amtrak could probably have cut a coach or two off at Las Vegas and not had any issues doing so; today, Amtrak would probably be able to cut off even more given how much I understand traffic to have gone downhill since then.
No, I don't think so. The big one was earlier, near the end of the Downs administration, and was resolved with a "tax refund" and special Congressional appropriations in 1997. The subsequent crises had a *lot* more lead time (I think the Department of Transportation didn't want to be blindsided again). Warrington loaded Amtrak up with debt, but the result was that he didn't have the same kind of sudden cash-flow crisis as Downs did -- because he did issue debt. The Penn Station Mortgage had a long lead time on it, he was campaigning for it for months, maybe a year.
No, as David Gunn took over Amtrak he quickly discovered that George Warrington had left him with no cash reserves. Within a month or two of him taking over Mr. Gunn had to get an emergency loan of $100M from the DOT just to meet payroll. That allowed the anti-rail Bush White House to impose the moratorium of no new startup's unless someone else (state or private entity) guaranteed that Amtrak would not lose money on the new service.
Well the Talgo set really has nothing to do with the power. They are pulled by Amtrak EMD engines on the Cascades. So your saying the EMD's can't make Cajon Pass? Doesn't the SWC make it through daily with two Genesis?
