Ron's Log

Plans For Passenger Rail Into Las Vegas

There is talk of two plans to build a passenger railroad into Las Vegas. I guess no one is talking about reviving the old Amtrak route, since that involves Union Pacific rights of way, and Union Pacific has a history of being non-cooperative. Both proposed railroads parallel I-15 across the Mojave and go into Las Vegas, but that's where the similarities end.

One proposal is, of course, the maglev train which would cost billions and travel from Las Vegas to Anaheim, via Ontario. At Anaheim passengers could potentially transfer to the future California high-speed rail.

The other plan is one put forward by DesertXpress which is a private company (good) proposing to build a railroad with NO government subsidies (very good!) using off-the-shelf technology (good) from Las Vegas to Victorville (FAIL!). The Las Vegas Sun has an article comparing the two proposals.

When I first heard of DesertXpress's idea to terminate at Victorville, I assumed they must also be proposing some cool bus system or light rail or similar to connect from Victorville into Los Angeles. But no. Their proposed solution to get you from downtown Los Angeles (or Anaheim) to Victorville is to get in your car and drive. Due to traffic congestion and the climb over the Cajon pass half of your travel time from LA to Vegas can easily be spent just getting to Victorville. Once you've gotten out into the free and open spaces of I-15 across the Mojave, will you really want to park at Victorville and take a train the rest of the way? Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on price and scheduling. Depends on whether you'd like to start drinking in Victorville or wait until you get to your hotel.

Basically, the DesertXpress concept is simply a Las Vegas commuter train to their newest bedroom suburb: Victorville.

To assist the geographically-challenged, here's a map highlighting Las Vegas (upper right) and Los Angeles and Anaheim (lower left). You can see where Victorville sits out in the desert. Ontario is the small red dot.

The main reason they give for not extending the DesertXpress route to Anaheim or Union Station in Los Angeles is the difficulty of negotiating the steep Cajon Pass on steel rails, which would be no problem for a maglev. Now when they say Cajon Pass is a problem for them, I assume they mean they couldn't negotiate Cajon Pass at their proposed 150 MPH. Obviously, regular railroad trains can get over the Cajon Pass. You'll see several of them creeping up or down the winding route any time you drive that way. Or, it could be that Union Pacific controls that narrow right-of-way and won't share.

As for connecting to the future California high-speed rail, DesertXpress says this: "The DesertXpress line could be extended over approximately 50 miles to interface with the inter-modal facility planned in Palmdale on the voter-approved California High Speed Rail Project." It's only 50 miles more of desert. Why not just plan to make it a Las Vegas-Palmdale train from the very start? At least then it looks like it makes a little sense. Maybe they're scared of the San Andreas fault which runs along that 50 miles.

California Rail

A long, well written article in the New York Times Magazine all about the future of high-speed rail in California, including why Californians appear to be welling to spend billions to create a state-owned railroad rather than try to work with broken Amtrak.

"...the stupendous cost of the rail plan is still tens of billions of dollars lower than the other option — expanding the highways and airports to accommodate the state’s population growth."

Union Pacific doesn't sound interested in cooperating - which is the same thing we've heard from Amtrak when discussing improving passenger rail travel between Coachella Valley and Los Angeles.

The author, Jon Gertner, goes to France to ride the TGV where he learns, among other things, that the train's engineer is allowed to be deceased for 32.5 seconds before the train shuts down.

$8 Billion For "High Speed" Rail?

It's $8 billion or $13 billion, depending on how you interpret Washington promises for future budgets. My first thought, upon hearing about this, was "$13 billion for what?" Last November California approved Prop 1 for about $10 billion for high speed rail, and for that amount all we're going to get is planning, design, and maybe some property purchases and a little infrastructure - and all that just for the first line from San Francisco to L.A.

Take $8 billion (or $13 billion) and spread it around the whole country for high speed rail and what do you really get? Probably some maps and conceptual drawings, a few junkets to France and Japan, of course. Anything else? Free calendars with pictures of trains?

I'm sure there are no details on this yet, but Obama does say this:

And our strategy has two parts: improving our existing rail lines to make current train service faster -- so [Congressman from New Jersey Robert Andrews] can, you know, shave a few hours over the course of a week -- but also identifying potential corridors for the creation of world-class high-speed rail. To make this happen, we've already dedicated $8 billion of Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to this initiative, and I've requested another $5 billion over the next five years.

Oh, okay. I think I can read that to mean "$13 billion to improve passenger rail service, and while we're at it we'll make a short list of where we want high speed rail some day."

But see how it's already getting misinterpreted at the Chicago Tribune:

Year after year, high-speed rail in the U.S. has been a popular idea that never left the station because of a lack of political will. All that changed Thursday.

Passenger trains traveling at 110 m.p.h.–arriving in Chicago from St. Louis in under four hours–could be operating in three or four years after President Barack Obama allocated $8 billion in federal stimulus money to begin building a national high-speed rail system, Illinois officials said Thursday.

They're conflating "high-speed rail" with "110 m.p.h. trains." Worldwide, high speed rail is understood to mean trains running faster than 125 mph. In China they run at speeds from 125 to 217 m.p.h.; in France from 130 m.p.h. to 200 m.p.h.; in Japan from 162 m.p.h. to 186 m.p.h.; in Russia up to 130 m.p.h.; in Turkey (Turkey!) up to 155 m.p.h.

That Wall Street Journal article (first link above) includes this map provided by the Department of Transportation that shows possible high speed rail locations. I noticed that broken (how appropriate) red line between Boston and D.C. The map key just identifies that as the Northeast Corridor's Acela service and claims it hits 150 m.p.h."for a stretch." I sent to WikiPedia article about Acela to find out if they've improved the service since I left New England. The answer is "no." While it is designed and built to travel at 200 m.p.h., the trains are limited by regulation to 150 m.p.h. due to track conditions, but it actually travels at an average speed of 86 m.p.h. The only place it can hit top speed is on the straight stretches between Providence and Boston, which I recall as being the most pleasant part of any Acela trip. Once the train pulls out of Providence headed to Boston, you'd better start getting your stuff together because you don't have much time. It's fun to be standing up and walking around at 150 (or whatever) m.p.h.

I think what will happen is we'll spend that $13 billion and some tracks and crossings will be upgraded, allowing for faster train service, which is all good and worth the money. But when the money is all spent people will ask, "Where's our high speed rail?" And then Washington will try to cover its ass, "We didn't really say you'd get high speed rail!" "Yes, you did!" "Nuh-uh! Show me where we said that!" We'll go back and forth over that for a while, and we still won't have any high speed rail, except what individual states have built.

IOW, these two programs should be kept separate: (1) passenger rail improvements, and (2) high speed rail. Do both and fund both.

DHS and Coachella

OC Weekly has an, uh, interesting story about the hospitality industry in Desert Hot Springs during the Coachella music festival. Despite some glitches, the author was finally able to bed down in DHS.

Strictly Palm Springs

The really unusual thing about this guide to visiting Palm Springs in the travel section of the N.Y. Times is that it limits itself strictly to Palm Springs. Every other article I've seen that promotes travel to "Palm Springs" will include the hot air balloons, the Living Desert, Desert Hot Springs, even Joshua Tree. This article doesn't even mention the Tram! The only slip-up is in the last paragraph where they mention the Coachella festival.

"Impossible" Rail Trip - Vienna to Pyongyang

A young Austrian and his Swiss traveling companion traveled by rail across Russia, into North Korea, ultimately to Pyongyang WITHOUT pre-approval from the North Koreans and WITHOUT guides. Lots of photos, especially of railroads and train stations. You may want to do as I did and just skip ahead to their last hours in Russia before crossing into North Korea.

Lucky I'm Still Alive

A story on Fox News about the "Ten Deadliest" stretches of highway in the U.S. (via Dave's Blog). These are measured in terms of fatalities over the last five years.

#1 - I-15 in San Bernardino County.

#2 - I-10 in Riverside County (will I make it home alive from jury duty?).

#3 - I-10 in Maricopa County, Arizona.

#4 - I-5 in Los Angeles County.

#8 - I-10 in Pinal County, Arizona.

#8 (tie) - I-5 in San Diego County.

Times Square Not Entirely Disneyfied

The Hotel Carter tops the list of the 10 dirtiest hotels in America. It is of note that the only hotel on that list west of the Mississippi is the Velda Rose Resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Here's the Carter's own website. The hotel is at 250 West 43rd Street in Manhattan, just a block away from Times Square.

A N.Y. Times story on the hotel from 2005.

Room 1105 was not so much a room as it was a place to lie low. It took eight paces to walk from one wall to the next and 21 paces to get from the door to the window. The telephone was dead. It sat on an old desk, its drawer broken and placed on the stained carpet, a copy of the Manhattan white pages, 1994-5, among the contents inside. The room was lighted by a bare bulb on the ceiling, and the headboard of the bed was a rectangle of blue carpet nailed to the wall. There was a big moldy splotch on the ceiling above the bathtub.

And a more recent article from the Daily News.

Hotel manager Erwin Lumanglas brushed aside its reputation.

"We are not bothered at all," Lumanglas said. "Even when they tell us we're the dirtiest hotel in the world, people are still interested in coming because of the price and the location."

Here are the reviews at TripAdvisor.

the small mountain of bugs in our room noshing on some previous client's piece of banana in the garbage (yes -- they were red-tinted and appeared to be blood suckers) , the brown-stained bed cover (it looked as if someone with uncontrolled diarhhea had sat on the bed previously) and the rat racing in the hall outside had us thinking we'd need medical attention the next day if we stayed. Please don't stay here.........perhaps if they lack clientele they'll shut down. Honestly, even if my husband and I were homeless, we'd prefer to sleep in Port Authority than here.

Gay Visitors

Even if you don't want to buy one of our super cheap houses, the Coachella Valley (or "Palm Springs" as the author calls it) turns out to be a cheap place just to visit right now, according to this article by Ed Walsh in the Bay Area Reporter. He lists the resorts, the bars and restaurants, and other things to see and do in the area.

I spotted only two mistakes to pick at: Warm Sands is about a mile east of downtown Palm Springs, not west. Now we know Mr. Walsh has been buying used compasses from the Desert Sun.

Also he says that Red Jeep Tours has "worked closely with the gay organization, Great Outdoors." Actually, Great Outdoors has gone on one (1) tour with Red Jeep Tours. We'll probably do another. But working closely? No.

Karl Baker's Travel Diary - Part The First

This is Karl Baker's report, written in his own words, followed by a few questions and answers.

Trip to Italy - December 2008

Having met Sergio sometime last spring, we established a wonderful relationship. Not seeing him as much as I wanted because he is so committed to his work, we nevertheless, established a wonderful friendship. We experienced quite a number of weekend outings culminating with a three-day farewell weekend at the Spotlight 29 Casino. Sergio was returning to Italy for about six months and then would return to his work at UCR developing a seedless juice orange (Valencia).

It was during these times together that Sergio suggested that I visit him in Italy. He also let me know that he usually took the entire two weeks around Christmas time as a holiday. So, the seed was planted and now is germinating.

As I write this, I am on the second leg of my flight to Palermo, Italy - Sergio's home. I flew to Philadelphia from LAX transferred to a flight to Rome where I will have a 6-hour layover before I catch a flight to Palermo.

I drove from Desert Hot Springs to a long-term parking lot near LAX, leaving at 3:45 AM and arriving at almost exactly 5:30 for my 7 o'clock flight. All went extremely well until I encountered the TSA security screening process.

Because you must remove your belt as part of the screening process, I, in the past have encountered problems which I have learned to mitigate to my advantage but, to the horror of a few little "tin Jesus" TSA employees. (I don't think a high school diploma or GED is required for this job.) If I remove my belt, my pants fall down. While it might be somewhat possible - though quite inconvenient - to work through the process of removing all metal on my person, placing it, along with shoes, and all outer garments into trays to run through the x-ray machines, placing my laptop on a separate tray (removing it from the carrying case), and complying with assorted other hijinks, I could possibly hold my pants up with one hand, retain my boarding pass in the other and proceed through the security tunnel hoping against hope that the beep will not sound. However, once my belt is removed, it must be replaced so that my pants will remain around my waist. Because of the industrial injury I experienced years ago, I cannot loop the belt through the loops in the back, as it is extremely painful to reach behind myself. It is necessary for me to loop the belt when my pants are off.

Therefore, the solution that works for me is to remove my pants - belt, change and all - place them into a tray and continue through the process wearing only tighty whities, boxers, socks and a "T" shirt. Sometimes I skate through with little or no notice but, as happened today, one of the TSA employees set off all kinds of alarms. You would have thought that I had caused a major disruption in the TSA process. Alas, this one agent went rushing off to find a sympathetic supervisor who would come and chastise me for whatever indecencies I had committed. In the mean time the other agents went about their business with nary a concern. One agent was overheard to say - "What's the big deal?" This was the Friday before Christmas and all through the airport thousands of mommies, daddies, little ones, college students, servicemen and assorted others were queueing up to get through TSA and on their way to what ever loved ones were awaiting them.

Now my errant agent not only was rushing around to find a supervisor, he called the Airport police, and snatched one of my bags with the comment that there was "some liquid in there which I have to check." He found a fleet enema which I had packed in the event that personal hygiene might be necessary somewhere between LAX and Palermo. But now, the gendarmes dressed in blue arrived. First a mature female Sergeant arrived and quickly surmised that I was 'getting off' on all the commotion surrounding me. She dismissed everything and went on her way but, the "little tin Jesus" was not happy with this and soon four more "blues" arrived on the scene and called me aside and asked for my ID. My comment in return was a very simple - "you show me yours and I'll show you mine, remember, just like when we were 5 years old." This comment was not received well and I ended up giving Officer Schroeder my passport. This rather confused him, as he had never encountered this form of ID before. Then Officer Henderson said, "We axed you of yo ID." He was a massive man and in some situations could be considered threatening. I asked him why he didn't speak English. "Do you want to hit my ID with an ax?" Once again the humor was lost on the stern faced quartet in blue. Now, a "little Napoleon" short Sergeant arrived to exercise his authority. He was chewing gum so rapidly that he must have had at least 500 miles on it.

His purpose was to be the bad cop as the quartet in blue had reached the limit of their ability to handle the situation. He informed me that I had four choices; 1.) I could be arrested for not surrendering my ID, 2.) I could be arrested for disorderly conduct PC 148, 3.) I could be taken to King Medical center and committed on a 5150 hold, and 4.) I could cooperate and proceed to take my flight. While the latter option was somewhat attractive, I knew they had no grounds for either of the three other options and suggested that if they chose to exercise any of them I would become a "pig in hog heaven" based on the lawsuit I could file - no pun intended. Well, with many more gyrations in an attempt to intimidate me and with a curt response to my request for a complaint form, I was not sure if I would make my flight. In true bureaucratic fashion Sgt. Gum Chew told me that I would not be allowed on the flight unless a representative from US Air gave me permission. Faced with refunding my first class ticket fare, this was not even a threat. I made it to the flight with time to spare.

Unfortunately, with all of the confusion regarding my bags, etc., somewhere along the way I lost my new cell phone. Oh well, a rather minor price to pay for the humor of the incident.

. . . .

Q & A

Ron's Log: Boxers or briefs?

Karl: I was wearing tighty whities with boxers over them in the event that some objectionable part of my anatomy might be exposed. At one point the police asked me if I was ashamed of dropping my pants in front of women and children to which I replied, "If I had my way I would walk through naked as I am a nudist."

Ron's Log: What kind of shoes?

Karl: My extremely comfortable cowboy boots that are very easy for me to slip in and out of. With almost no stop in motions, I slip off my boots, put them in a tray and place my pants on top of them.

Ron's Log: TSA doesn't like a passport as ID?! Where do these guys work for a living?

Karl: It wasn't TSA that had a problem with my passport for ID - it was the Airport Police Department which, I believe, may be an arm of the Los Angeles Police Department. At no time did I see a badge - I just saw uniforms. When they suggested that I could be arrested and taken to MLK Hospital under a 5150 (In danger of hurting themselves or others) complaint, I responded by saying, "please do." The lawsuit award that I would receive from the City of Los Angeles would be well worth the experience. Sgt. Gum Chew told me that they didn't work for the City of Los Angeles, at which point I informed him that, yes, but he worked for the Los Angeles Airport Commission which was a division of the City Council for the City of Los Angeles. So, there was no more talk about committing me as insane.

The reason the passport wasn't good enough for identification is that the information on the passport was not enough to run a quick criminal record check - which they did. A California - or any other State - driver's license or ID card was their preferred form of identification.

Ron's Log: Did you have more adventures with TSA or customs when returning?

Karl: When returning and going through TSA in Philadelphia my only problem was that I placed the bag that carries my laptop, into a bin. The TSA officer (agent?) demanded that I take the bag out of the tray and place it on the belt by itself. As he was challenging me on this situation I was dropping my pants and putting them into the next tray - nary a comment re: sans pants, but indignation that I placed my bag in a tray and not on the belt directly.

Ron's Log: How was Italian airport security?

Karl: In Italy, upon arrival, I had to, once again, go through the security screening because I was changing from an International terminal to a domestic terminal. Since I tried to venture through the metal detector hoping for a less sensitive detector - oops, it buzzed. I walked back through and dropped my pants and put them in a bin on the belt. The Italian TSA (equivalent) started busting out in laughter. He spoke little English and I spoke even less Italian but he wanted to know where I was from - Texas? Not only the boots, but I wear my hat so I must be a Texan. In any event he thought I was quite a character and found great humor in the entire event. (In LA Sgt. Gum Chew told me that if I tried "that stunt" in Europe I would be in far greater trouble.)

Returning back to the US via Palermo, I went through the same procedure. When the Italian TSA equivalents observed what I was doing - big smiles spread across their faces as they looked at me. I smiled and said "molto facile" - they smiled in return gave me a thumbs up sign and I put my pants back on, and went on my way.