Wes Edens has broken ground on Brightline West, his $12 billion Las Vegas-to-SoCal railway, aided by billions from the Biden Administration. But building more high-speed lines like this one won’t be easy.

Under a blazing morning Las Vegas sun, billionaire Wes Edens and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg threw a party this week to mark the start of construction of Brightline West, the first private high-speed railway in the U.S., driving yellow spikes into a section of track.

Now comes the hard part. The $12 billion project is three years behind his original schedule — delayed by the pandemic and final environmental approvals — but if construction goes as fast as the billionaire cofounder of Fortress Investment Group promises, it'll open in time to speed travelers across the desert at 200 miles per hour from Sin City to Southern California in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“The timeline is both realistic and achievable,” Edens told Forbes. “The impact of this is going to be long-lasting and prodigious. And I want it to be successful because I want the next one and the next one and the next one to happen.”

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2024/04/23/in-las-vegas-a-billionaires-blueprint-for-building-bullet-trains/?sh=1884f4bb64ac

0:00 Introduction
2:34 The Las Vegas Area Bullet Train And The Olympics
3:24 The Bullet Train Is Nearing Completion
6:15 Brightline West Is The First Private High-Speed Railway In The US
9:23 What Is The Next Project For Brightline?

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