Let’s have a train that goes where we want to

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Blame it on Sam Marber.

I have had a fascination with trains since I was a small boy growing up in a very tiny Las Vegas, a town that traced its roots to the need for a place to provide water for the trains moving from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Yep, water was plentiful in those days — at least for the trains.

Sam was an older boy who lived across the street. His garage rarely had a car in it, at least not so any of us noticed. What it did have was a train setup that seemed to cover the entire garage. It was the kind of train — complete with mountain villages, lakes, bridges and every other bit of scenery one could imagine — that was the envy of any young boy’s dreams.

And he never let any of us play with it!

Forget what I thought of Sam Marber; what I thought about trains is what matters. As a youngster I used to ride the train from what is now the Plaza on Main Street — that’s where the train station was — all the way to San Bernardino.

The conductors called it San Berdu and it took well over six hours to make the trip. It could have taken days because riding the trains was a treat for those us who knew what it was like to drive through Baker, Calif., in the summer without air conditioning in the car.

But, enough of my boyhood. Let’s talk about trains like adults.

This past week I rode the train from Washington, D.C., to New York City and back. I could have flown but, all in, that would have taken me three hours or more — most of it waiting and driving — to reach my destination.

Instead, I sat in a very comfortable chair, had breakfast, read my newspapers, talked politics and golf, stopped in places such as Baltimore, Wilmington, Del.; Philadelphia; and someplace in New Jersey — for no more than two minutes in each place — before we pulled into Penn Station in the middle of Manhattan. Total time? Three hours.

I tell you this for two reasons.

First, the trip could have taken only two hours if the tracks on which the Acela train was traveling had been upgraded to handle the greater speeds. But, alas, when the higher-speed train was introduced the decision was made to put it on yesterday’s track technology.

It was a big mistake to restrict our forward progress by the limits of what we built yesterday. But even though the train speed is limited, the timing and the trip itself make for a much more pleasant experience than flying that short distance.

That’s because of the second reason. I got on the train in the middle of Washington and got off in the middle of Manhattan — exactly where I wanted to go.

So, why am I telling you about my boyhood dreams of trains and my more recent trip on the Acela? Because what used to be just a dream can now be a reality, the kind of reality that makes a place like Las Vegas an even better place to live and visit.

If we do it right.

If we do what Acela did — build fast technology on slow tracks — we will have wasted time and money and, more important, squandered an opportunity to build the best of what’s available rather than just more of the same.

All over Europe train stations and train technology are being built that look and operate like they came out of science-fiction movies. And they work beautifully.

We seem constrained in this country to build and operate trains that look and operate as if they came out of westerns! And I fear the Las Vegas to Los Angeles efforts looks more like that model.

This isn’t about whether it is a maglev or not a maglev. It is about the latest and greatest technology, whatever that is.

Of far greater importance, though, this is about the question of where. As in where does the train go and where do the people on it want to go?

Very few people between Washington and New York wanted to go to Wilmington or even Philadelphia — but they could. But almost all of them wanted to be in New York City. And that is where the train went!

I can’t believe we are still talking about a train from Las Vegas to Victorville, Calif. No matter how many other tracks will be built, eventually, to meet that train and take people elsewhere in California, the people who get on the train in Las Vegas want to go where they live. That would be either in the Los Angeles area — whether downtown Los Angeles or in the San Fernando Valley — or in Orange County, where the tourists from other countries could also spend time at Disneyland, returning to Las Vegas for an extra day or two on the way back.

Simply put, if I got on the train in Washington the other day, and the conductor told me I was going to New York but the train only went to New Jersey, I can guarantee you I would have rented a car and driven there or braved the airport.

When I was a kid, trains represented something fanciful and fun. Now that I am an adult, they should represent the same thing.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.