2023-04-26 07:00:00
The American billionaire Wes Edens (REUTERS/Brian Losness)
The American billionaire Wes Edens wants to venture into a new business project that until now would be something new for the United States: offer an innovative transportation service to the citizens of that country, which at the same time allows him to become a tycoon of high speed trains.
Edens wants to create “the world’s greenest bullet train” for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which will run from the West Coast to Las Vegas at speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour.
“When you look at the systems in Japan, in the systems in China, nine major cities in Japan are connected with true high-speed trains; China has 42,000 km of high-speed rail routes. We have zero,” the businessman told Forbes magazine.
“Vegas-to-LA is probably the best system in the world that hasn’t been built yet,” he added.
Edens is not only a billionaire private sector investor, he is also a co-founder of Fortress Investment Group and co-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, English Premier League soccer club Aston Villa, and has a growing energy business that is expanding from exports of liquefied natural gas to the production of green hydrogen, according to information from Forbes.
“I don’t think it’s a get-rich-quick business. It’s more of a get rich very slowly business. But I think the value that it’s creating over years or generations will be tremendous. What I am very focused on is that it is economically viable because that means that there will be more of them”, assured the businessman in the same interview with the prestigious American magazine.
Edens is convinced that this is a great opportunity to usher the US into the era of high-speed rail.
It must be understood that this is a great challenge for the tycoon, since the US is a country that has developed a lot in the automotive sector and by building large highways, therefore, although the public transportation system is a necessity for the US population At this time it is not a priority. Almost everyone is forced to have a car and they are adapted to that system, depending on the city to which it refers.
A new bullet train model in Japan reaches 382 km/h (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
But Edens’ approach to building bullet trains in the US is simple and differs drastically from that taken by the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
His plan focuses on “locating them along existing highway corridors and putting steel tracks in the ground instead of expensive viaducts. Then build train stations as destination commercial properties to generate additional income,” this is what Edens has already been trying to perfect at Brightline’s Miami Central Station in recent years with restaurants, bars and shops.
“The company already has a 110-acre property in Las Vegas for its future resort, commercial development and perhaps even a stadium for a future Major League Soccer team that Edens might play for,” Forbes notes.
Edens estimates that his project will cost 12 billion dollars to develop the 350-kilometer Brightline West system from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, a southern California city very close to Los Angeles, which are linked by a suburban rail line. currently operational.
These prices are interesting if a comparison is made with the construction of the system from Los Angeles to San Francisco within the same state of California, which has increased to at least 108 billion dollars in the last 15 years, and it is expected that the The first 275-kilometer phase connecting cities in the state’s Central Valley will cost $35.3 billion when it opens in 2030.
But in addition, the Edens plan is not only longer, but it is contemplated that the entire Brightline West project will be electrified and use renewable energy.
On April 20, Brightline inaugurated a station at the Orlando International Airport, which will connect passengers to Miami in three hours starting in July with trains running at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour.
One of the Brightline company trains in Florida (EFE)
The next day, Brightline submitted a 4,000-page application to the Federal Railroad Administration, backed by Nevada and California, seeking $3.75 billion in high-speed rail grant funds available under the bipartisan infrastructure bill of 2021 to build Brightline West.
Edens told Forbes that he will raise an additional $8 billion from private investors to build tracks, lines and electric power stations and buy trains from a supplier with manufacturing operations in the US.
German firm Siemens, which supplies trains for Brightline in Florida powered by renewable fuel, and Alstom, which makes Amtrak’s Acela trains, are competing to build electric locomotives for the Las Vegas line.
Power for the West Coast line will be supplied by massive solar farms that stretch across the California and Nevada desert and geothermal power from the Salton Sea region.
“It will be 100% electrified and will use renewable energy,” Edens told Forbes. “It will be literally, not a decoration, the greenest train in the world.”
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