Attacks renew interest in Amtrak service for Vegas

Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2001 | 11:12 a.m.

If an economic stimulus package supported by Nevada Sen. Harry Reid continues to pick up steam in the Senate, long-delayed efforts to return passenger train service to Las Vegas could get back on track.

Reid, who supported legislation to improve the nation's infrastructure even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the East Coast, is now gathering support for a package that would provide funds for new projects and generate jobs.

"The economic stimulus plan, if one comes about, would be a bipartisan mosaic that would include a variety of traditional Republican and traditional Democratic issues," said Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor.

Naylor said the terrorist attack has galvanized political relationships and that all sorts of infrastructure projects -- including upgrades to the nation's rail system -- are on the table.

Naylor said lawmakers would consider track improvements that could upgrade conventional Amtrak service with high-speed trains or even speed up the futuristic "maglev" magnetic-levitation train proposals that are still on the drawing board.

Included in the proposed $100 billion economic stimulus package are Senate proposals for as much as $37 billion into the nation's passenger rail system.

Meanwhile a bill introduced in the House by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, would authorize $71 billion in loan guarantees and federal tax-exempt bonds to fund construction of a high-speed rail system throughout the United States.

But proposals to finance trains won't be a slam dunk. The New York Times reported Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of Amtrak's most vocal critics, said he supported economic aid to airlines because they were facing an emergency. But Amtrak, he said, isn't facing any such emergency.

Naylor said if lawmakers are motivated to support Amtrak, Las Vegas could benefit directly, since jobs would be created in Nevada.

"This has a long way to go," Naylor said. "But by floating the idea now, we're at least talking about financing the infrastructure: power transmission lines, roadways, bridges, water and sewer projects. We're talking about all kinds of energy, health care and decontamination facility projects as well as transportation."

Transportation projects could have the greatest impact on the Las Vegas economy, since developing the means to bring gamblers to the city is what keeps the local economic engine humming. Delivering visitors by train could fill a four-year-old void.

Conventional train service came to an end in Las Vegas in May 1997 when the Desert Wind, an Amtrak operation that delivered passengers to the city three times a week, was discontinued due to lack of ridership. The Desert Wind operated between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City and stopped in Las Vegas at the Plaza hotel-casino.

Mike Nolan, general manager of the Plaza, said the train station is gone and there is no trace of Amtrak at the hotel. Only a historic marker remains on the site as a reminder that passengers once got on and off trains there.

Nolan said if Amtrak reinitiated service in Las Vegas, his hotel would explore remodeling the passenger lobby, which is now used as a dealer break room and for storage.

Although conventional Amtrak service passing through Las Vegas disappeared in 1997, a plan to develop a high-speed train using European technology on runs between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is still alive.

Amtrak West, a regional subsidiary of Amtrak, is still planning to use a high-speed "Talgo" train that could transport about 330 people a day from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in about 5 1/2 hours. "Talgo" is a Spanish acronym describing the lightweight train capable of speeds of up to 120 mph. Trains between Los Angeles and Las Vegas would only travel at about 79 mph.

A $28 million track improvement project would build 20 miles of parallel track at a steep grade just south of the Nevada border in California.

Union Pacific Railroad, which manages railroad tracks used primarily by freight trains between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, is within days of delivering an environmental assessment to the National Park Service to get permission to improve tracks that cut across the Mojave National Preserve.

Dennis Schramm, a spokesman for the Mojave National Preserve, said the assessment would be sent to a Park Service office in San Francisco that would release the document publicly. A 30-day comment period would then begin and other federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will review the track proposal for impacts on desert tortoise habitat and air and water quality concerns.

Once the environmental assessment is approved, Union Pacific would be cleared to build the new track, a project that is expected to take six to eight months to complete.

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