The private partners on Desert Xprss appear to involve at least one concern that has developed high speed routes in Europe. It appears that they are not ready to go fully public yet with a final commitment and are still seeing if it can work. One issue unresolved is how this would link to access into the LA basin.

Let's face it, no serious demand really exists to go from just Victoville to Las Vegas. But this "portion" does have the interest of that firm as the "private" portion of a possible public/private partnership, if they can get into Southern California markets over a CHSRA or a local entity alignment. Cajon is the big obstacle to that, and would not be cheap to build over, like much less costly the segments through the desert. This route was not included in the national high speed plan, probably because that access to LA is still unresolved.

Much of the Las Vegas interest to develop MagLev may primarily be a "front" to provide high speed access to develop an alternative Airport location at, or near, Primm. All of these MagLev projects have been based upon a fixation with the exotic technology, which requires 27 times as much energy to levitate the "train", as a conventional TGV, and a very expensive separate guideway system. SCAG's MagLev (the Sou Cal regional planning agency) "white elephant" proposal ended up with an estimate of over 20 billion dollars for under 40 miles from LA Union Station to the Ontario Airport. Not really being a true intercity high speed corridor would not stop Harry Reid from taking the money, though.

Thanks, Espee 99 for taking on this job and doing it so well, this is a great resource.