Monorail passes test during CES

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2005 | 9:43 a.m.

The Las Vegas Monorail appeared to have passed its first large-scale test since the system re-opened last month after a string of glitches kept it closed for more than three months, a company spokesman said.

The monorail carried almost 150,000 passengers between Thursday and Sunday -- more than 37,000 people a day -- as conventioneers attending the Consumer Electronics Show packed the $650 million system and spent a total $450,000 to ride the rail, which reopened for public service Dec. 24, monorail spokesman Todd Walker said.

"It was quite busy," he said. "The system was very efficient."

Walker said no significant glitches were reported during the convention, which brought an estimated 130,000 people to Las Vegas, and that the largest complaints stemmed from wait times of 20 to 25 minutes to board a train at the convention center.

The most significant glitch occurred Wednesday after a technician for Bombardier Inc., the Canadian firm that built and operates the trains, failed to adequately reset a door mechanism that had been interrupted when a passenger blocked a door leading from the elevated train to the platform outside the Sahara hotel.

The oversight allowed the train to pull away from the station with one of the two doors ajar for a few second, county building official Ron Lynn had said.

The error caused a 15- to 20-minute delay in normal operations, as technicians inspected the trains and ran them once between the Sahara and Las Vegas Hilton platforms.

The system had seen higher-than-expected ridership numbers since the low-key reopening. An estimated 50,000 revelers packed the trains on New Year's Eve and another 40,000 packed the monorail the following day, Walker said.

The monorail, which first opened July 15, reopened Dec. 24 after a three-month closure that began when a six-inch-wide washer fell from a moving train Sept. 8.