Question of the Day - 07 November 2005

There most certainly are.

A group called the California-Nevada Super-Speed Train Commission (CNSSTC) was formed in 1988 with a vision of a 269-mile-long "bullet" train between Anaheim and Las Vegas. The train would run on an electrically generated magnetic field, propelling it along a pathway beside I-15. Known as a "maglev," the magnetically levitating cars ride atop a magnetic cushion a fraction of an inch above the elevated track, reducing friction and achieving speeds of upwards of 300 mph. The maglev could complete the one-way trip between Southern California and Southern Nevada in a mere 90 minutes.

Initially, the train's massive price tag (an estimated $9 billion) and other issues caused many to dismiss this "Gambler's Special" as a high-tech pipe dream. And in 2001, the federal government rejected a $1 billion plan to build a first leg of the maglev between Primm and Las Vegas.

However, the feds allocated $45 million for an environmental impact report on the Las Vegas-Primm leg, a 42-mile one-way trip that would take 12 minutes to complete -- and cost an estimated $1.5 billion to build, or $36 million a mile. (A stop can also be built at Ivanpah, ten miles closer to Vegas, after the new airport opens there, scheduled for 2017. It would take less than 10 minutes on the maglev to get from the airport to downtown.)

It's been an eventful few months for the so-called "maglev," with Sen. Harry Reid suddenly dropping supoort for this project that he'd long championed, then hopes for federal financing being dashed, followed by yesterday's announcement that the Export-Import Bank of China would put up the necessary $7.1 billion to fund the project. Watch this space (or future spaces), for updates on this on-again-off-again project, which now faces competition from other proposed high-speed rail projects. 04/03/2008 An optimistic prediction that accompanied the grant held that ground on the Vegas-Primm leg could be broken as early as 2008. As of April 2008, no ground has been broken.