Taking the High Speed Rail from Phoenix to Los Angeles in the future


As of this writing, Fall of 2016, you can't take a "Bullet Train" from Phoenix to Los Angeles. But I know that it will happen, so I'm planning ahead.

I live in Phoenix, and I love visiting LA, but it's miserable getting there. I've driven it (which is boring and awful), and nowadays I fly (and dealing with airports is miserable and awful). And while the future of high speed transportation when I was a kid was in the air, now it's on the ground.

If you've ever flown on a commercial plane from Phoenix to Los Angeles, you know that you barely have time to eat those delicious honey-roasted peanuts before you hear the pilot saying "We're about to land..." So the time time in the air is short, but the time at the airport is ridiculously long. And that's because it's an old, antiquated, adapted system that took into account the convenience of airplanes, but forgot all about how people move. You have to arrive at an airport an hour or two before the plane takes off, and then stand in line, herded like cattle. I know that they're doing the best they can, but it still sucks.

I'm sure that future generations will wonder what people nowadays were thinking.

In my fairly long lifetime, I've never ridden on a train. I've seen people do it in movies, and I've read about it in books. It works like this, you go to a station, buy a ticket, and get on the train. Actually, I've been on the Light Rail here in Phoenix, and it's just amazing. You just walk on, with your ticket in hand, and the train takes you somewhere. You don't stand in line, you don't have to have a "boarding pass", you don't have to look at what number you're supposed to be, you just go. There are multiple doors that open wide so that a lot of people can get on and off at the same time.

It seems like a wild fantasy for me to imagine getting into a train like that in Phoenix, and riding all of the way to Los Angeles. No boarding passes with the number and section that I need to figure out, no need to arrive two hours before the train arrives (although I'd get there early to get a good seat), no stopping at every little town along the way (like Greyhound buses do - yuk!).

I'm looking forward to riding the train to Los Angeles. I'm practicing here in Phoenix by riding the Light Rail, and the Sky Train.
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Comments

  1. William D. P.July 9, 2019 at 3:06 AM

    I'm an autistic Tucson resident as of 2002 and love trains, one reason I left Sierra Vista and moved to Tucson as a matter of fact! I've ridden trains since I was 2 and living in Germany but first rode Amtrak from Benson when I was 5. I like trains way more than plans and now automobiles!

    It would be great to have a high speed train from Phoenix to Lis Angeles, especially on the line Amtrak used to run between Phoenix and Yuma, and I hope they save that track and use that!

    I never rode the Light Rail in Phoenix and have been wanting to and still want to. Thankfully we now have a Streercar system. It's only 3.9 miles but it's a start and I hope it gets expanded throughout Tucson, to the Tucson Mall, along Broadway to the Park Place Mall if it can go that far, and South on 6th Avenue to the Roy Laos Transit Center. They say they also want it to go to the airport.

    What I really want is passenger rail between Tucson and Phoenix, and something other than Amtrak. If I could I'd totally take the train from Tucson to Phoenix, I won't have to be stuck using I-10, especially with the dust storms that get people killed on that part of I-10! There needs to be passenger rail between Tucson and Phoenix, using both local trains and express trains, and on a separate track than Union Pacific's, which is supposed to have an increase in freight train traffic!

    And although I'm asking for too much, it be nice to ride trains from Tucson to Sierra Vista and through Benson! Likely never going to happen but a train would get me back to Sierra Vista, not to live though, to visit. New track would have to be built though. Then maybe from Sierra Vista to Bisbee and or Douglas.

    There should also be passenger rail from Tucson to Sahurita, Green Valley, and perhaps Nogales!

    But much of this if not all of it is just a fantasy and may never happen!

    ReplyDelete

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