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Brightline West, an affiliate of Brightline, the country’s only privately owned passenger railroad, is planning a 170-mile high-speed rail line, which would connect Las Vegas to the Apple Valley community in San Bernardino County. Set to travel at a maximum speed of 200 miles per hour, trains on... View full entry
DesertXpress Enterprises LLC, an affiliate of Virgin Trains USA, has struck a lease deal with the California DOT (Caltrans) for a right of way along Interstate 15 as part of its $4.8 billion, 170-mile XpressWest bullet train from Southern California to Las Vegas. — Construction Dive
First mentioned on Archinect last September, the planned 170-mile long high-speed rail line that could connect Las Vegas with Southern California's Apple Valley station, about 90 miles northeast of Downtown Los Angeles, is making progress. XpressWest, a Brightline company and subsidiary of Virgin... View full entry
A long-in-the-works plan to link Houston and Dallas with high-speed rail is making steady progress as backers for the project announce that they could be one year away from breaking ground. Earlier this year, Archinect reported that Texas CentralTexas Central, the group advocating for and... View full entry
The San Diego Association of Governments’ ambitious rail plan includes laying hundreds of miles of track throughout the county to connect residential areas to these job centers. Agency experts are analyzing the region’s commuter patterns in an attempt to design rail service that lures commuters off the most congested highway corridors.
The lines, many of which are planned as subways, will go through existing residential areas with the added aim of encouraging dense development along the routes.
— San Diego Union-Tribune
The ambitious plan could be funded by a series of sales tax increases, which would have to be approved by local voters. SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “I think this region is more suited to follow-up with transit-oriented development than any... View full entry
Microsoft is giving another $223,667 to study the possibility of building a high-speed rail line connecting Vancouver, B.C., Seattle, and Portland, adding to a previous donation. The company is providing a total of $573,667 to the project. Other funders include the Province of British Columbia; the Oregon Department of Transportation; and Washington Department of Transportation. — Geek Wire
According to Geek Wire, The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) estimates that the proposed Cascadia Rail high-speed rail system connecting the three cities could spark $355 billion in economic growth in the region, while bringing in around $160 million to... View full entry
Ridership on Metrolink would double between Burbank and Anaheim, relieving freeway congestion, and new high-speed electric trains would slash emissions along the route under a plan that would shift up to $5.5 billion from the bullet train project in the Central Valley to Southern California. — The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times reports that the California High-Speed Rail Authority could funnel a portion of the $20.5 billion already earmarked for the state's new train system toward a high-speed link connecting Southern California. The funding would improve regional commuter rail services... View full entry
Arab News reports that the fire broke out at the Suleimaniyah rail station on Sunday in Jeddah, leaving five injured. Saudi Arabia’s Haramain High-Speed Railway opened in 2018 and ferried Hajj pilgrims throughout the country for the first time earlier this year... View full entry
Texas Central, the private company developing the Texas Bullet Train, announced it had signed a deal with Salini Impregilo, the Italian construction giant, and its American subsidiary, Lane Construction, to design, construct and install the 240-mile high-speed rail line using Japan’s Shinkansen trains. — The Houston Chronicle
The plan to build a 90-minute bullet train between Dallas and Houston still requires a number of local, state, and federal approvals before it can move forward. Nonetheless, backers of the project are raising funding for the initiative and setting out to complete early design work. Texas... View full entry
The California High-Speed Rail Authority and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) have reached a funding agreement that will bring $400 million in public funds to the Link Union Station project. Link US, as the project is widely known, aims to retrofit Los... View full entry
Virgin Trains USA Vice President Bob O’Malley told delegates at the Nevada Economic Development Conference that design work was 30% complete and that the proposed line between the Las Vega strip and Victorville, on the northeast outskirts of Los Angeles, would be using the Virgin Trains’ Florida project as its model. The line will span [185 miles] with trains travelling up to [149 miles] per hour, which would clock a journey time of approximately 75 minutes. — Construction Global
Virgin Trains USA is reportedly seeking financing for the project, which could shuttle up to 22 million travelers per year between the two metropolitan regions. The outfit, which is also behind the successful Brightline train line in Florida, aims to finish construction of the L.A.-Las Vegas... View full entry
High-speed rail service will be available for the first time this year during Hajj, the pilgrimage by Muslims to Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca.
Some of the millions of pilgrims expected to make the journey will be riding Haramain High Speed Rail, which links Mecca to Medina and passes through three stations: Jeddah, King Abdul Aziz International Airport and King Abdullah Economic City in Rabigh.
— CNN
The route's four larger-than-life train stations are designed by Foster + Partners and BuroHappold as international gateways for each host city, and are based on traditional and ancient design motifs that prioritize the creation of breezy spaces that are protected from the sun. View full entry
Grauberger says they've already ruled out light rail because it would be too slow to travel the 173-mile route.
"We need higher speeds to be competitive with the interstate system," he says.
— KDVR
Regional governments in Colorado are studying ways for boosting the Front Range Urban Corridor region's interconnectivity. Officials expect the regional population to grow by 1.7 million inhabitants over the next 25 years and are looking to position that future growth to take advantage of... View full entry
Located about 7 miles north of Naples, the Napoli Afragola railway station designed by Zaha Hadid Architects has been operating for a year now. To mark the occasion, the firm released some new photos of the snake-like building taken by Hufton + Crow. As part of Italy's expanding high-speed rail... View full entry
[Hyperloop] has the swagger of Elon Musk rather than the stigma of a public bureaucracy. Second, it’s going to be, like, a billion times faster than HSR. [...]
And yet, this combination of enthusiasm and magnetism doesn’t buy farmland. It doesn’t ease eminent domain takings. It doesn’t blast through bedrock or relocate utilities. It doesn’t design station area plans. [...]
The very same mountains, cities, canals, farmers, and habitats that complicate HSR also complicate Hyperloop.
— cp-dr.com
For past reporting on Hyperloop in all its emerging forms:Designing the Hyperspace: UCLA studio imagines Hyperloop's future in CaliforniaA first look at the Hyperloop's real tubes and imagined winged terminalsUnpacking the Hyperloop's lofty promisesElon Musk launches Hyperloop Pod Competition to... View full entry
even given that the Hyperloop whitepaper was a rough sketch, the most important elements of the plan—its speed and price—have been vastly oversold. [...]
But there’s a final reason to be skeptical, not just of the technical details of the Hyperloop, but of the supposedly utopian motives behind it: It may not even be Musk’s idea.
— fortune.com
More on the much hyped (and griped) world of Hyperloop:Elon Musk launches Hyperloop Pod Competition to university students and engineersLA's Arts District now home to Hyperloop World HeadquartersThe town that Hyperloop builtDon't write off Elon Musk's Hyperloop yet...Designing the Hyperspace: UCLA... View full entry
