Ground was broken today on what is said to be America’s first high-speed rail. The project, which is designed to connect Los Angeles and Las Vegas via a 218-mile stretch of track that will be built across the Mojave desert, will be completed within the next four years, its backers say.
The proposed infrastructure project will stretch from the California city of Rancho Cucamonga to Vegas and is being headed by rail construction firm Brightline. In its description of the project, the company notes that the new route will be traveled by “all-electric, zero-emission trains” that will be capable of “reaching top speeds of 200 mph, getting passengers from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in about 2 hours and 10 minutes (2x faster than the normal drive time).” The project was helped along by $3 billion in federal funding supplied by the Biden administration, the Associated Press writes.
Of course! There’s debate among urbanists/foamers about whether Acela really counts as HSR (conventionally, HSR starts around 180 mph IIRC), but it’s definitely the fastest train in the US ATM, so it’s been allowed to slide. But yeah, a lot of folks don’t know about Acela outside of the area it serves. Amtrak has sort of been a red-headed stepchild for decades, so a lot of folks just don’t think about Amtrak at all, and, I mean, it’s hard to blame them, unfortunately.