train travel between denver and las vegas?

carnaby_fudge · 01-03-2008, 05:22 PM

is there any quicker travel by TRAIN between denver and las vegas other then amtrak which takes 25 hours. (keyword TRAIN)

carmie · 01-03-2008, 05:29 PM

there is no train service between Las Vegas to Denver(a long time ago there was but it was cancelled)there is a Amtrak bus from Las Vegas to Salt lake cityand you have very long layover (11 hours)for the zephyr to come though then the train to denveryou might want to take Greyhound insteadhere

carolel6938 · 01-03-2008, 05:36 PM

Sadly, there is NO scheduled passenger train travel between Denver and Las Vegas... it was discontinued in 1997. There is plenty of FREIGHT moving thru Vegas, but no passengers.Perhaps there should be a letter-writing campaign by Vegas-goers to push for a line tween Denver and Los Angeles... multi-class RR travel from those cities to Las Vegas.A Casino with a TRAIN Station as part of it's attraction?

CarolH · 01-03-2008, 05:43 PM

The AMTRAK "Desert Wind" used to run between the two but lack of ridership caused it to cancel about 10 years ago.

carolel5482 · 01-03-2008, 05:50 PM

There is no passenger train service to Las Vegas at present. There was a proposal to provide a high-speed passenger train service from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, but that would mean doubling the single-track line across the desert: President Clinton vetoed the idea because the extra track would disturb the habitat of the Desert Tortoise. The Californian Zephyr train (Amtrak #5) runs from Denver (where it reverses into the station - this would never be allowed in the UK for safety reasons) to Reno. You could then take an eight hour bus journey to Las Vegas. There is no alternative to Amtrak for your required journey (unless you ride a freight train illegally).

movalmike1 · 02-11-2008, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carolel5482

There is no passenger train service to Las Vegas at present. There was a proposal to provide a high-speed passenger train service from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, but that would mean doubling the single-track line across the desert: President Clinton vetoed the idea because the extra track would disturb the habitat of the Desert Tortoise. The Californian Zephyr train (Amtrak #5) runs from Denver (where it reverses into the station - this would never be allowed in the UK for safety reasons) to Reno. You could then take an eight hour bus journey to Las Vegas. There is no alternative to Amtrak for your required journey (unless you ride a freight train illegally).

Not quite true. I'm not a Clinton fan, so I hate to stick up for him. Amtrak had actually purchased a Talgo trainset, and negotiated double-tracking the route (I can't remember if the double-tracking got completed). At the 11th (11:59?) hour, one of the environmental groups filed suit in federal court for the reason you specified in your post. I think (not sure) it was finally ruled in Amtrak's favor, but by then Bush was President and his goal was to kill Amtrak, not start or resurrect routes.