{"id":46305,"date":"2026-02-09T15:46:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T23:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/?p=46305"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:33:21","slug":"brightline-train-that-was-never-happening-is-now-79-more-never-happening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/brightline-train-that-was-never-happening-is-now-79-more-never-happening\/","title":{"rendered":"Brightline Train That Was Never Happening is Now 79% More Never Happening"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brightline West, the company that genuinely seems to believe it is building a train between Las Vegas and Southern California, has revised the estimated cost of the project upward to $21.5 billion.<\/p>\n

Even at its original budget of $12 billion, this project was never, ever happening. Now, it’s 79% not happening.<\/p>\n

Headline from our highly trained Las Vegas local journalists, experts at examining facts and drawing conclusions using sources and critical thinking: “BRiGhtLiNe WEsT HIgH-SPeEd RaIL PRoJecT NOw oN TRAck FoR LAtE 2029.” We are not making this up. We added the SpongeBob case, but that was an actual headline<\/a>. The mind reels.<\/p>\n

\"\"
This A.I. image is giving Brightline way too much credit for having constructed something.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This isn’t rocket science.<\/p>\n

Brightline’s project—a 218-mile, all-electric high-speed rail line between Las Vegas, Nevada and Rancho Cucamonga, California—has about $6.5 billion in funding for this fever dream.<\/p>\n

There’s a $3 billion federal grant from the Federal Railroad Administration, and another $3.5 billion in federal tax-exempt private activity bond allocations.<\/p>\n

That’s it. The project was $6 billion short when the projected cost was $12 billion. Now, the cost is $21.5 billion, and if you think that’s going to be the actual budget, you should not be allowed to procreate or operate heavy machinery.<\/p>\n

Yes, Brightline has applied for a $6 billion federal loan, a federal Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan, from the U.S. Department of Transportation, but even if they get that loan (applying isn’t funding), they’re still $7 billion to $8 billion short.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: Not happening.<\/p>\n

Despite the facts, Brightline is touting all its progress and Las Vegas media are gobbling it up like pelicans at a herring buffet.<\/p>\n

Our “paper of record,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal, publicist for the A’s (whose ballpark is a mere $1 billion short of funding) has been moonlighting for Brightline, breathlessly reporting on how project construction is moving forward<\/a>!<\/p>\n

The Review-Journal has a reliable source, too: Brightline West’s Bamboozler-in-Chief Michael Reininger.<\/p>\n

“As you can see when you drive by the site, we’re building today; it’s underway,” Reininger told the Review-Journal. “It’s no longer a conversation, we’re manufacturing trains, we’re building buildings, we’re starting the construction of the infrastructure; it’s happening.”<\/p>\n

Reininger is referencing work on a planned Las Vegas station located on Las Vegas Boulevard, between Warm Springs and Blue Diamond.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Renderings are the poor man’s funding.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Further evidence this project without funding is definitely happening? Reininger claims Brightline West trains are being built at a Siemens factory in Germany.<\/p>\n

Basically, Brightline is running a train involving Siemens and the Las Vegas Review-Journal is enthusiastically on board, no questions asked.<\/p>\n

Good luck getting that mental picture out of your head.<\/p>\n

Why, you may ask, would a company begin construction despite the fact that funding isn’t there, nor will it be?<\/p>\n

Why are the A’s putting on their dog-and-pony show at the Tropicana site? Why did Dream Las Vegas start without funding? Why did Echelon? Why did All Net move dirt around for a decade? It’s to maintain the illusion something is valuable or moving forward, to get others on board (including the media).<\/p>\n

In the world of grifting, of long cons, it’s called “salting the mine.” In the old-timey mining days, grifters would sprinkle a small amount of gold into a worthless mine so investors would find it and think they’d struck pay dirt.<\/p>\n

Construction provides specificity. Specificity is a con artist’s camouflage, creating the illusion of truth. Specificity bypasses skepticism, creating the illusion of expertise to distract from impossible claims.<\/p>\n

The truth is Brightline is Bleutech Park<\/a>. It’s a collective delusion, enabled and amplified and emboldened by piss-poor journalism.<\/p>\n

Plans and promises and renderings and saying things confidently aren’t funding.<\/p>\n

We said this for a decade as All Net perpetuated its con. We’ve been saying this since Brightline first made its announcement about the high-speed train to Las Vegas. Somebody has to show Las Vegas isn’t full of gullible rubes.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas may have been built on boundless optimism, but it wasn’t built on stupid.<\/p>\n

Brightline is playing us for fools, but you know better because you have excellent taste in blogs, but you also have a brain, the ability to discern fact from fantasy, something our local journalists seem to be lacking, all due respect.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brightline West, the company that genuinely seems to believe it is building a train between Las Vegas and Southern California, has revised the estimated cost of the project upward to $21.5 billion. Even at its original budget of $12 billion, this project was never, ever happening. Now, it’s 79% not happening. Headline from our highly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vegas","category-las-vegas-wtf"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBrightline Train That Was Never Happening is Now 79% More Never Happening | Vital Vegas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Brightline West, the company that genuinely seems to believe it is building a train between Las Vegas and Southern California, has revised the estimated\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/brightline-train-that-was-never-happening-is-now-79-more-never-happening\/\" \/>\n<meta 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