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> could zoom travelers between Las Vegas and Los Angeles in just under two hours by the end of the decade Just to be clear, this is to the "greater Los Angeles

> could zoom travelers between Las Vegas and Los Angeles in just under two hours by the end of the decade Just to be clear, this is to the "greater Los Angeles area", ending at Rancho Cucamonga station, a 48 minute drive (1h15m by public transit) to downtown LA, and a 1h15m drive (2h30m by public transit) to LAX.

qwerty456127 3y ago
Nice clue. If this was being built in Europe it would probably have a number of stops within the city area including opposite outskirts, the center and the airport.
- noirbot 3y ago
  Totally honest question - have there been recent expansions of train lines into cities in Europe? In the last 20 years? My default assumption right now is that this sort of grand construction is generally infeasible in countries outside of China where they generally don't care who they displace or the environmental damage, and often are building the cities from the ground up in the first place with the trains as a part of the urban planning. I've been peripheral to a few urban light/heavy rail expansion projects in the US and the consistent issue is that even cities with a lot of urban sprawl are still dense enough that you have to displace a lot of people/businesses to build a new line and the stations around it. It's the sort of thing that's a lot easier to do when the city is young, or the train line got built in an era where you could just force people to sell their houses and move. I'd be honestly curious if anywhere in the EU has managed to put in a totally net-new line like this outside of existing tracks that included a stop at the city center and various stops on the way into town. Almost every city-center train station I've ever been to in Europe was over 100 years old (even if the building had been upgraded) and seemingly using most of the same lines.
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    New rail lines get built all the time. The recipe is really simple: don't do megaprojects. Individual projects must be of appropriate size for the level of government that is making the decisions. When there are several projects of similar size in the pipeline all the time, the government can develop and maintain the expertise needed to build the infrastructure.
    - concordDance 3y ago
      It's kinda sad how we don't know how to do megaprojects any more. :(
      - shiroiushi 3y ago
        Megaprojects require a very high level of unity. Do you see a lot of unity in the US or Europe these days? It's why all the rail megaprojects are happening in Asia these days.
      - rsynnott 3y ago
        We absolutely know how to do megaprojects, but unless you _really_ have to, you don't want to do a megaproject. They've _always_ been a bit fraught; it's not like there was a golden age where they were easy and had a low failure rate.
  - tonfa 3y ago
    > Totally honest question - have there been recent expansions of train lines into cities in Europe? In the last 20 years There's a lot of ongoing extensions, but into existing train station. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/en/about-us/projects/in-betrieb/cross-city-link.html https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/en/about-us/projects/in-betrieb/cross... https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/projects/german-speaking-switzerland/central-switzerland/new-lucerne-station.html https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/projects/german-speaki... (Switzerland has bunch of those since they typically expand capacity with 20-30y horizon)
    - noirbot 3y ago
      Yea, I suppose I should have been more specific - it's also obviously easier to "upgrade" a line you already have the land and space for. It's not trivial, since you have to sacrifice some of the throughput in the meantime to support the construction, but it's easier than building an entirely new line. Also, kinda tough reading that Stuttgart link where it seems like it was generally unpopular and the police did crimes to suppress dissent. I don't really know the details to have an opinion on if they're right, but still.
      - tonfa 3y ago
        The swiss links are totally new lines, not "upgrades". But given it's Switzerland they just decide to do it all underground.
  - AngusH 3y ago
    High speed 1 in the UK Section 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 Section 2 finished in 2007 (just within your 20 year cutoff!) It links the channel tunnel with London St Pancras. Much of the London part is in tunnels and it is 100% grade separated. The uk High Speed 2 route was also going to do this and build a new high speed rail line and station into London, but the exact issues you describe seem to mean that it will be halting at a point outside London instead possibly using existing tracks. Overall though, High speed rail doesn't need new tracks into cities unless all the existing lines are full (or they are too slow) It's much easier to build high speed line in the countryside and link it to the existing lines that run to existing stations in cities. (Also the Elizabeth line in London, but's more like a metro really, even if it is 'heavy' rail)
    - noirbot 3y ago
      That's good to hear! I suppose some of the sale for it is that the tunnel was already done, so the value was very clear. People were already taking that train on a slower version for business/tourism, so there was obvious value to be made expanding it. Though, somewhat funny to me that it seems like it all got paid for by Canadian pensions?
      - lmm 3y ago
        You need an investor that's looking for something that will pay off over a long time period. Big pension funds are a natural fit. And the UK and Canada have a good relationship and a history of rail-related cooperation (e.g. a lot of UK trains are made by Bombardier).
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - rgmerk 3y ago
    Yes, it's happened. Even the UK, which has an arguably worse NIMBY problem than California, managed it (though it's getting close to your 20-year deadline): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 There have of course also been several urban rail projects within Greater London during that time. Other examples of relevance: * LGV Sud Europe Atlantique * Wendlingen–Ulm high-speed railway * pretty much all of Spain's high-speed rail network.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > Totally honest question - have there been recent expansions of train lines into cities in Europe? In the last 20 years? Yes, absolutely. London's Crossrail opened a few years ago. Paris has been building new RER lines almost continuously. > I'd be honestly curious if anywhere in the EU has managed to put in a totally net-new line like this outside of existing tracks that included a stop at the city center and various stops on the way into town. Almost every city-center train station I've ever been to in Europe was over 100 years old (even if the building had been upgraded) and seemingly using most of the same lines. Upgrading the existing station and existing lines, or building new lines along the same right-of-way, usually makes sense - the station is already in the right place and connects up to the existing network. E.g. Roma Tiburtina was basically completely flattened and rebuilt, but it's technically an "upgrade". You're mostly right though, to build a new station in a city you absolutely do need a large block that you can reasonably demolish - e.g. in London the planned next high-speed rail station at "Old Oak Common" will be accommodated by demolishing a big prison (Wormwood Scrubs), and it's not exactly central. Or you build completely underground, but that's expensive and you still need to demolish stuff to make a worksite. Frankly building a new station somewhere somewhat out of town is perfectly reasonable as a way of saving money, and generally a new business district will gradually spring up around the station - see e.g. Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, or Shin-Osaka. But you need good metro connections with the CBD, at least to start with, otherwise you end up like Haute-Picardie. IMO a lot of people who want high-speed rail in the US are putting the cart before the horse: you need to build a decent metro in a city before having high-speed rail to that city makes sense, and this kind of thing is exactly why - and one of the reasons this line works is exactly that it can go to a more "outlying" station because LA is one of the few cities in the US that has been building new metro lines over the last few decades.
  - jeffreygoesto 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    Leipzig: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_City_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_City_Tunnel Malmö: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6) Proposed lines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Proposed_rail_infrastructure_in_Europe_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Proposed_rail_infrast... I can't see a Wikipedia category for recent extensions. It will very often make sense to connect the hundred year old station to a new major line, but as with Leipzig and Malmö they also build additional stations in the centre of the city.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    We're building a huge line to connect the Baltics with the rest of the EU rn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica
    - euroderf 3y ago
      As I understand it, east-west lines in the Baltic countries are being left in Russian gauge while new north-south lines will (of course!) be in standard gauge. Which is totally excellent until they finally get around (in some future century) to building the rail tunnel to Finland, whereupon they (i.e. Finland) will have to make some choices.
  - theluketaylor 3y ago
    Grand Paris Express will be 200 km of new track to provide massive new connectivity to the Paris suburbs. Some extends existing lines, most is completely new lines adding connectivity between RER lines much further from central Paris to enable many trips to avoid the centre of the city. It's a combination of new tunnels and elevated guideway to be fully grade separated. Closer to home I'd point to Montreal REM which will be 67 km of track in new elevated guideway when it's all done using automated trains. Phase 1 opened last summer. They did re-use an existing tunnel through downtown, but it needed extensive repairs and reconditioning as it hadn't been is use for nearly a century. If you're interested in what systems around the world look like and what's been possible to build I'd highly recommend RMTransit. Canadian like me, so many videos are focused here, but he has tons of explainers on metro and train systems all over the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris_Express https://www.youtube.com/@RMTransit https://www.youtube.com/@RMTransit
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Depends where in Europe; high speed rail having a bunch of stops in a single city is a _little_ unusual, I think. However, the station would likely at least be linked into the local transport system in most countries.
cjensen 3y ago
Ok, but folks are perfectly willing to drive to Rancho Cucamonga if it means avoiding the 200-mile long traffic jam on I-15 on Sunday afternoon. A full transit system for everyone in LA would dwarf the cost of this rail line and it would take so long for people to return home they just would drive instead.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
  I think the parent commenter's point that it would have been much more useful to extend the main line itself into LA city centre rather than stop ~75 km away in the middle of nowhere. The good thing about railway stations is that they take up much less space than an airport—they're about the size of a large condominium complex—so cities could actually fit them inside, without having to do the whole airport thing and put the terminal tens of kilometres away. And many cities even build office blocks and hotels on top of their railway stations. See London, Paris, Berlin, etc.
  - jessriedel 3y ago
    The problem is the space for the tracks running to the station, not the space for the station itself. Taking enough land by eminent domain to run tracks to downtown (or anywhere else dense) is prohibitively costly. And digging tunnels is even more expensive.
  - tomjakubowski 3y ago
    Rancho Cucamonga isn't near downtown LA, but it also isn't in the middle of nowhere. The whole stretch along I-210/I-10 from downtown LA to Rancho, and further past to San Bernardino, is contiguous suburbia (urban in some places). There are existing commuter rail lines between them too.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    The size of the train station isn't the issue, it's the space taken by the tracks. This is when Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) are supposed to step in and save the day, but the cost of going underground is still too high to make it feasible.
bagels 3y ago
I'm sure the Vegas taxi lobby will make sure the train station is isolated and not connected to transportation to the strip
- Rebles 3y ago
  Wouldn't taxis make money by picking up passengers at the train station?
  - bagels 3y ago
    Yes, to clarify, I meant public transportation, just like they blocked the monorail from connecting to the airport.
- juniperus 3y ago
  The station is on the strip, just a bit south. I think the Tesla tunnel will go there lol.
mixmastamyk 3y ago
If you wanted to go to LAX you would've flown. Downtown by Metrolink then Metro/Uber is doable, if not fantastic.
dragonwriter 3y ago
There is planning to eventually connect into CA HSR at Palmdale via the High Desert Corridor project (a separate intercity high-speed rail project), and CA HSR and Brightline have, IIRC, discussed this as opening up single-seat travel (for the whole SF/LA/LV network.
rsynnott 3y ago
I mean, you'd hope that that would be improved; LA has a metro system, right?
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Not much of one.
delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
In European terms, this is like moving King's Cross to Stevenage. Or moving Gare de Lyon to Paris Disneyland. The only difference is that both Stevenage and Paris Disneyland are already well-connected to rail: Stevenage is on the East Coast Main Line to Edinburgh and LNER stops there anyway, and Paris Disneyland is a TGV stop. Why America is allergic to having a big central railway station in the middle of a city, I will never understand.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  LA has a big central railway station in the middle of the city. Brightline isn't initially going to connect to it because reasons. What reasons? They're building new right-of-way from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas; doing that from Rancho Cucamonga to downtown LA is much harder, because there's all this city in the way. Now, there's existing rail there, but it's heavily used, and negotiating access won't be cheap. (Building an additional track along it also won't be cheap.)

qwerty456127 3y ago

Nice clue. If this was being built in Europe it would probably have a number of stops within the city area including opposite outskirts, the center and the airport.

noirbot 3y ago
Totally honest question - have there been recent expansions of train lines into cities in Europe? In the last 20 years? My default assumption right now is that this sort of grand construction is generally infeasible in countries outside of China where they generally don't care who they displace or the environmental damage, and often are building the cities from the ground up in the first place with the trains as a part of the urban planning. I've been peripheral to a few urban light/heavy rail expansion projects in the US and the consistent issue is that even cities with a lot of urban sprawl are still dense enough that you have to displace a lot of people/businesses to build a new line and the stations around it. It's the sort of thing that's a lot easier to do when the city is young, or the train line got built in an era where you could just force people to sell their houses and move. I'd be honestly curious if anywhere in the EU has managed to put in a totally net-new line like this outside of existing tracks that included a stop at the city center and various stops on the way into town. Almost every city-center train station I've ever been to in Europe was over 100 years old (even if the building had been upgraded) and seemingly using most of the same lines.
- jltsiren 3y ago
  New rail lines get built all the time. The recipe is really simple: don't do megaprojects. Individual projects must be of appropriate size for the level of government that is making the decisions. When there are several projects of similar size in the pipeline all the time, the government can develop and maintain the expertise needed to build the infrastructure.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    It's kinda sad how we don't know how to do megaprojects any more. :(
    - shiroiushi 3y ago
      Megaprojects require a very high level of unity. Do you see a lot of unity in the US or Europe these days? It's why all the rail megaprojects are happening in Asia these days.
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      We absolutely know how to do megaprojects, but unless you _really_ have to, you don't want to do a megaproject. They've _always_ been a bit fraught; it's not like there was a golden age where they were easy and had a low failure rate.
- tonfa 3y ago
  > Totally honest question - have there been recent expansions of train lines into cities in Europe? In the last 20 years There's a lot of ongoing extensions, but into existing train station. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/en/about-us/projects/in-betrieb/cross-city-link.html https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/en/about-us/projects/in-betrieb/cross... https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/projects/german-speaking-switzerland/central-switzerland/new-lucerne-station.html https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/projects/german-speaki... (Switzerland has bunch of those since they typically expand capacity with 20-30y horizon)
  - noirbot 3y ago
    Yea, I suppose I should have been more specific - it's also obviously easier to "upgrade" a line you already have the land and space for. It's not trivial, since you have to sacrifice some of the throughput in the meantime to support the construction, but it's easier than building an entirely new line. Also, kinda tough reading that Stuttgart link where it seems like it was generally unpopular and the police did crimes to suppress dissent. I don't really know the details to have an opinion on if they're right, but still.
    - tonfa 3y ago
      The swiss links are totally new lines, not "upgrades". But given it's Switzerland they just decide to do it all underground.
- AngusH 3y ago
  High speed 1 in the UK Section 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 Section 2 finished in 2007 (just within your 20 year cutoff!) It links the channel tunnel with London St Pancras. Much of the London part is in tunnels and it is 100% grade separated. The uk High Speed 2 route was also going to do this and build a new high speed rail line and station into London, but the exact issues you describe seem to mean that it will be halting at a point outside London instead possibly using existing tracks. Overall though, High speed rail doesn't need new tracks into cities unless all the existing lines are full (or they are too slow) It's much easier to build high speed line in the countryside and link it to the existing lines that run to existing stations in cities. (Also the Elizabeth line in London, but's more like a metro really, even if it is 'heavy' rail)
  - noirbot 3y ago
    That's good to hear! I suppose some of the sale for it is that the tunnel was already done, so the value was very clear. People were already taking that train on a slower version for business/tourism, so there was obvious value to be made expanding it. Though, somewhat funny to me that it seems like it all got paid for by Canadian pensions?
    - lmm 3y ago
      You need an investor that's looking for something that will pay off over a long time period. Big pension funds are a natural fit. And the UK and Canada have a good relationship and a history of rail-related cooperation (e.g. a lot of UK trains are made by Bombardier).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- rgmerk 3y ago
  Yes, it's happened. Even the UK, which has an arguably worse NIMBY problem than California, managed it (though it's getting close to your 20-year deadline): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1 There have of course also been several urban rail projects within Greater London during that time. Other examples of relevance: * LGV Sud Europe Atlantique * Wendlingen–Ulm high-speed railway * pretty much all of Spain's high-speed rail network.
- lmm 3y ago
  > Totally honest question - have there been recent expansions of train lines into cities in Europe? In the last 20 years? Yes, absolutely. London's Crossrail opened a few years ago. Paris has been building new RER lines almost continuously. > I'd be honestly curious if anywhere in the EU has managed to put in a totally net-new line like this outside of existing tracks that included a stop at the city center and various stops on the way into town. Almost every city-center train station I've ever been to in Europe was over 100 years old (even if the building had been upgraded) and seemingly using most of the same lines. Upgrading the existing station and existing lines, or building new lines along the same right-of-way, usually makes sense - the station is already in the right place and connects up to the existing network. E.g. Roma Tiburtina was basically completely flattened and rebuilt, but it's technically an "upgrade". You're mostly right though, to build a new station in a city you absolutely do need a large block that you can reasonably demolish - e.g. in London the planned next high-speed rail station at "Old Oak Common" will be accommodated by demolishing a big prison (Wormwood Scrubs), and it's not exactly central. Or you build completely underground, but that's expensive and you still need to demolish stuff to make a worksite. Frankly building a new station somewhere somewhat out of town is perfectly reasonable as a way of saving money, and generally a new business district will gradually spring up around the station - see e.g. Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, or Shin-Osaka. But you need good metro connections with the CBD, at least to start with, otherwise you end up like Haute-Picardie. IMO a lot of people who want high-speed rail in the US are putting the cart before the horse: you need to build a decent metro in a city before having high-speed rail to that city makes sense, and this kind of thing is exactly why - and one of the reasons this line works is exactly that it can go to a more "outlying" station because LA is one of the few cities in the US that has been building new metro lines over the last few decades.
- jeffreygoesto 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Leipzig: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_City_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_City_Tunnel Malmö: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6) Proposed lines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Proposed_rail_infrastructure_in_Europe_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Proposed_rail_infrast... I can't see a Wikipedia category for recent extensions. It will very often make sense to connect the hundred year old station to a new major line, but as with Leipzig and Malmö they also build additional stations in the centre of the city.
- malermeister 3y ago
  We're building a huge line to connect the Baltics with the rest of the EU rn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica
  - euroderf 3y ago
    As I understand it, east-west lines in the Baltic countries are being left in Russian gauge while new north-south lines will (of course!) be in standard gauge. Which is totally excellent until they finally get around (in some future century) to building the rail tunnel to Finland, whereupon they (i.e. Finland) will have to make some choices.
- theluketaylor 3y ago
  Grand Paris Express will be 200 km of new track to provide massive new connectivity to the Paris suburbs. Some extends existing lines, most is completely new lines adding connectivity between RER lines much further from central Paris to enable many trips to avoid the centre of the city. It's a combination of new tunnels and elevated guideway to be fully grade separated. Closer to home I'd point to Montreal REM which will be 67 km of track in new elevated guideway when it's all done using automated trains. Phase 1 opened last summer. They did re-use an existing tunnel through downtown, but it needed extensive repairs and reconditioning as it hadn't been is use for nearly a century. If you're interested in what systems around the world look like and what's been possible to build I'd highly recommend RMTransit. Canadian like me, so many videos are focused here, but he has tons of explainers on metro and train systems all over the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris_Express https://www.youtube.com/@RMTransit https://www.youtube.com/@RMTransit
rsynnott 3y ago
Depends where in Europe; high speed rail having a bunch of stops in a single city is a _little_ unusual, I think. However, the station would likely at least be linked into the local transport system in most countries.

cjensen 3y ago

Ok, but folks are perfectly willing to drive to Rancho Cucamonga if it means avoiding the 200-mile long traffic jam on I-15 on Sunday afternoon. A full transit system for everyone in LA would dwarf the cost of this rail line and it would take so long for people to return home they just would drive instead.

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
I think the parent commenter's point that it would have been much more useful to extend the main line itself into LA city centre rather than stop ~75 km away in the middle of nowhere. The good thing about railway stations is that they take up much less space than an airport—they're about the size of a large condominium complex—so cities could actually fit them inside, without having to do the whole airport thing and put the terminal tens of kilometres away. And many cities even build office blocks and hotels on top of their railway stations. See London, Paris, Berlin, etc.
- jessriedel 3y ago
  The problem is the space for the tracks running to the station, not the space for the station itself. Taking enough land by eminent domain to run tracks to downtown (or anywhere else dense) is prohibitively costly. And digging tunnels is even more expensive.
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  Rancho Cucamonga isn't near downtown LA, but it also isn't in the middle of nowhere. The whole stretch along I-210/I-10 from downtown LA to Rancho, and further past to San Bernardino, is contiguous suburbia (urban in some places). There are existing commuter rail lines between them too.
- jandrese 3y ago
  The size of the train station isn't the issue, it's the space taken by the tracks. This is when Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) are supposed to step in and save the day, but the cost of going underground is still too high to make it feasible.

bagels 3y ago

I'm sure the Vegas taxi lobby will make sure the train station is isolated and not connected to transportation to the strip

Rebles 3y ago
Wouldn't taxis make money by picking up passengers at the train station?
- bagels 3y ago
  Yes, to clarify, I meant public transportation, just like they blocked the monorail from connecting to the airport.
juniperus 3y ago
The station is on the strip, just a bit south. I think the Tesla tunnel will go there lol.

mixmastamyk 3y ago

If you wanted to go to LAX you would've flown. Downtown by Metrolink then Metro/Uber is doable, if not fantastic.

dragonwriter 3y ago

There is planning to eventually connect into CA HSR at Palmdale via the High Desert Corridor project (a separate intercity high-speed rail project), and CA HSR and Brightline have, IIRC, discussed this as opening up single-seat travel (for the whole SF/LA/LV network.

rsynnott 3y ago

I mean, you'd hope that that would be improved; LA has a metro system, right?

lotsoweiners 3y ago
Not much of one.

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago

In European terms, this is like moving King's Cross to Stevenage. Or moving Gare de Lyon to Paris Disneyland. The only difference is that both Stevenage and Paris Disneyland are already well-connected to rail: Stevenage is on the East Coast Main Line to Edinburgh and LNER stops there anyway, and Paris Disneyland is a TGV stop. Why America is allergic to having a big central railway station in the middle of a city, I will never understand.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
LA has a big central railway station in the middle of the city. Brightline isn't initially going to connect to it because reasons. What reasons? They're building new right-of-way from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas; doing that from Rancho Cucamonga to downtown LA is much harder, because there's all this city in the way. Now, there's existing rail there, but it's heavily used, and negotiating access won't be cheap. (Building an additional track along it also won't be cheap.)