Desert Xpress, now the R&R Railway ... as in Reid & Rogich.

That's it. I'm done. Stick a fork in the "Sin City Express" from Anaheim to Las Vegas. It's all but dead now that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) has flip-flopped and thrown his support to a rival project touted by Sig "The Fixer" Rogich, in a juice job that's fooling absolutely frigging nobody. That the maglev project is now effectively dead is but a subplot. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority hopped aboard, too.

The official story is that it's just a great big coinky-dink that the Sigmeister just so happens to co-chair Republicans for Reid. This collection of local muckety-mucks unmasked itself last week, sending the tacit message that Reid's 2010 challenger can expect bupkes from the bidness community.

In its defense, Sig's Desert Xpress is projected to be considerably cheaper than its maglev rival for federal funding. It also, Reid sayeth, would require fewer taxpayer-provided doubloons. (At least until it reaches "too big to fail" status, whereupon Harry & Sig have got John Q. Public by the short hairs; shades of the Las Vegas Monorail.)

However, Sig's choo-choo would travel roughly half as fast as the "Sin City Express" and would terminate in the middle of nowhere. As Hugh Jackson puts it, "After all, if not for Harry Reid's enormous political clout, Nevadans might not enjoy the newly heightened hope that someday they will be able to take a train to Victorville to eat at the truck stop." Apparently, the success of the project hinges upon its being extended westward to Palmdale, to hook up with CalTrans. (Or vice versa.) So it sounds like several shoes are as-yet undropped.

Pay no heed to the man behind the curtain, either. Reid lauds kindred spirit Rogich as "connected to people on just about every side of every issue." Or, in the immortal words of Boy George, "I'm a man/Of no convictions." Having foisted Gov. Kenny Guinn on Nevada twice over, Sig shamelessly flung himself into the arms of Guinn's bete noire, then-Rep. Jim Gibbons in 2006. After all, the most important thing is to come out on the winning side, right?

Rogich was master of the revels on a night of boozing that ended with Midnight Jim being accused of assaulting a cocktail waitress in a Hughes Center parking garage. (The incident is under civil litigation at present.) Aforesaid bacchanalia was conducted in lieu of Gibbons making a scheduled TV appearance to debate opponent Dina Titus, who's since gone on to bigger and better things. Tasked to provide adult supervision for Gibbons, Sig failed miserably.

Would you buy an unused locomotive from this man? At least one thing's clear. If Jackson, myself and Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick are all of one mind on this Reid/Rogich lovefest, the Apocalypse must surely be nigh. Be afraid. Be very afraid.