Brightline Revises One-Way Fare for LA to Vegas High Speed Train

Posted on: January 22, 2025, 01:04h. 

Last updated on: January 23, 2025, 08:11h.

Last March, Brightline founder Wes Edens told the L.A. Times that his company “will eventually charge more than $400 for a round trip from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga.” This stoked anger and disbelief among its potential customers.

A rendering of a Brightline West train, which will advertise itself by zooming at up to 200 mph past Interstate 15 motorists who seek a faster trip to Las Vegas next time. (Image: Brightline)

That estimate has since been lowered. According to paperwork filed for a new $2.5 billion bond offering, Brightline now projects a standard-class one-way ticket to cost $119, with a premium cabin only $14 more. That’s as of 2031, which the filing called the system’s first “stabilized” year of service.

The bond offering consists of $1.85 billion in private activity bonds from California and $625 million from Nevada, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, with Morgan Stanley underwriting the bond sales.

Slow Train Coming

Construction on the $12.4 billion line is expected to begin in the next few weeks. But Brightline has abandoned its initial hope of opening it in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in LA, admitting that service won’t begin until at least December 2028.

Standard coach seating is shown aboard the Brightline West’s American Pioneer 220 train. (Image Brightline West)

The train will travel 218 miles on the median of Interstate 15 at speeds of up to 200 mph, making the trip in about two hours. The Southern California terminus will drop passengers in Rancho Cucamonga, where light rail connections can carry them the 37 additional miles southwest to downtown LA, which for most people will take about an hour.

That will make the trip about three hours each way, about the same as flying for passengers who arrive at the airport an hour ahead of their flight.

Brightline West plans to feature 35 hourly departures every day.

A Las Vegas terminus will be constructed by McCarthy Building Co. on Las Vegas Boulevard near Blue Diamond Road. Although that’s 2.5 miles south of the Las Vegas Strip, ride-hailing services, resort shuttles, and car rentals will be accessible at the station.

Additional stations are planned in Hesperia and the Victor Valley in California.

Brightline projects its high-speed rail to generate $1.1 billion in ticket revenue in 2031.