Brightline West
Brightline West is a privately run high-speed rail line under construction in California and Nevada. When complete, it will link the Las Vegas Valley and Rancho Cucamonga in Greater Los Angeles through the California High Desert via Interstate 15. The line will connect with existing rail at the Rancho Cucamonga station of Metrolink's San Bernardino Line, a commuter rail line in Southern California. The project is intended to provide an alternative to air and automobile travel between Southern California and Las Vegas, a popular leisure destination. In December 2023, the United States Department of Transportation awarded Brightline West a $3 billion grant as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Construction, initially expected to begin shortly after the grant was announced in 2023, began on April 22, 2024. Revenue service is planned to start by September 2029.
The line was developed starting in 2005 as DesertXpress and has passed through several developers and investors. In September 2018, the project known as XpressWest, was acquired by Fortress Investment Group, which owns Brightline in Florida, the only privately run inter-city rail route in the United States. An extension of Brightline West from Victor Valley to the California High-Speed Rail station in Palmdale is also under consideration.
Context
Las Vegas is a gambling and tourist destination for the Greater Los Angeles area. Interstate 15 is a direct route between the two regions. An estimated 50 million people travel between Los Angeles and Las Vegas annually, with 85% using a car. Travel by automobile takes over four hours while scheduled buses cover the route in five to seven hours. Interstate 15 is an important freight route, so reduced congestion on the route would benefit the supply chain.The highway carries heavy traffic on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday which causes significant delays. Motorists returning to Los Angeles on Sunday can create a backup. Airlines have direct flights, but traffic and security at the airport add time to the short flight. Las Vegas lost its last passenger train service in 1997 when Amtrak canceled the Desert Wind.
Brightline project
In September 2018, Fortress Investment Group, which owns an inter-city rail route in Florida called Brightline, announced that it would acquire the federally approved XpressWest rail corridor project, indicating that it would begin construction of the rail line in the second half of 2020 with expected completion in the second half of 2024. After some delays, groundbreaking began on April 22, 2024 with service initially expected to start sometime in 2028. The project is expected to generate around 18,000 jobs at its peak. Los Angeles County finished an environmental assessment for the project in 2016. In October 2019, design plans were almost 30% complete. In September 2020, the line was rebranded to Brightline West, and is being called "a Brightline affiliated company."Funding assistance
A high speed line following the Palmdale–Apple Valley–Las Vegas route was included in the 2018 California State Rail Plan as part of the 2040 timeline of projects. Subsequently, the state of California issued tax-exempt, private activity bonds to XpressWest to partially fund construction. These bonds are meant to assist private ventures for the public interest.In September 2019, it was announced that California would assist the project in funding. In October 2019 California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank approved $3.25 billion in bonds. In April 2020, California government officials signed off on issuing $600 million in tax-exempt private activity bonds for XpressWest. The state of Nevada allocated the company an additional $200 million in private activity bonds in July 2020.
Cofounder and co-CEO of Fortress, Wes Edens, estimated the cost of construction at $8 billion in 2020. In September 2020, up to $3.2 billion in the tax-exempt, private activity bonds were offered. In November, it was decided to let the rights for the sale of the bonds lapse. A bond sale was planned for 2021 but was moved to 2022 to allow continued progress on project planning and for the bonds to be more attractive to investors.
Los Angeles Metro is considering re-programming around $2 billion in Measure M funding slated for the High Desert Corridor, a proposed freeway between Victorville and Palmdale, canceled in October 2019, to instead create a development plan for an extension of the XpressWest route between the two cities.
In February 2023, the company applied for $3.75 billion in funding from Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. A bipartisan congressional group from Nevada and California wrote a letter in April 2023 in support of the funding. In December 2023, the United States Department of Transportation awarded Brightline West $3 billion of the grant request and in September 2024 signed it. In January 2024, Brightline West received $2.5 billion of private activity bonds from the US Department of Transportation in addition to $1 billion given in 2020. The remainder of the cost is expected to be privately financed.
Due to rising costs of labor force and materials, the company requested a $6 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The costs are now estimated to be $21.5 billion.
Rancho Cucamonga extension
The company initiated planning on a rail line over the Cajon Pass to Rancho Cucamonga in June 2020. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in November 2021 has billions of dollars for rail projects which provides expanded opportunities for companies such as Brightline. In January 2022, the Federal Transportation Department's Federal Rail Administration began reviewing the that would allow speeds of up to.The environmental report for the Rancho Cucamonga route was released in October 2022. The environmental report includes the location of the proposed intermediate station in Hesperia. The report notes some mitigation measures will be necessary: temporary impacts on noise and wetlands, temporary and permanent impacts on some threatened or endangered species, visual impacts on views in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains, and traffic impacts around stations in Hesperia and Rancho Cucamonga. The report concludes that the project "will not result in a significant impact on the environment" or have "disproportionately high and adverse impacts" on low-income or minority populations. The environmental permit was approved in July 2023.
The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority was awarded a $25-million grant in July 2023 from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program to fund design and construction costs of the stations in Hesperia and Apple Valley.
Construction
Preparatory work involving ground surveys in the right of way of Interstate 15 and recruitment of up to 11,000 workers began in January 2024. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 22, 2024, at the planned Las Vegas station site, marking the official start of construction. Heavy construction was scheduled to begin in early 2025, with the Nevada DOT saying work could start in April 2025. However, as of October 2025, the major construction for the rail line is expected to begin in April 2026. To oversee this critical phase, former CEO Michael Reininger transitioned to a new role in January 2026 as Managing Director dedicated exclusively to the delivery of the brightline West project.The company originally aimed to have the line operational for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. However, as of 2025 officials now anticipate the line will begin service September 2029, too late for the Olympics. In January 2026, updated financial disclosure revealed that the estimated cost of the project had risen to $21.5 billion.
Since the groundbreaking, field investigations and early-site activities has advanced throughout both Nevada and California. By mid-2025, Brightline West crews were performing geotechnical borings, utility potholing, and survey operations along the Interstate 15 corridor, including bridge-potholing work near the I-15/SR-210 interchange in Rancho Cucamonga. In California's High Desert, crews expanded operations through Victor Valley and Hesperia, conducting soil sampling and drainage surveys. Field work continued to intensify into early 2026, focusing on the I-15 median preparation
In North Las Vegas, PCM Railone announced construction of a US $20 million concrete-tie production facility dedicated to the Brightline West project, with tie shipments expected to begin in late 2025. According to updated planning documents, main civil works, including embankment grading, drainage, and bridge pier construction, are scheduled to accelerate through 2025-2026, with fully heavy-construction activity beginning by early 2026.
Route
The tracks are planned to be laid in the median of Interstate 15, aside from a short section connecting to Rancho Cucamonga and a section on the east side of the highway approaching the Las Vegas station. Sections will pass through federal land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. While plans at first called for a fully double-track railway along the route, Brightline intends initially to build the project as a mostly single-track route with passing sidings, partly because additional sections were moved to the highway median where space is more limited.In the original plan, the route did not extend into Los Angeles due to the high cost of building rail in urban areas. The extension from Victor Valley to the city of Palmdale, where it would connect to the California High-Speed Rail system currently in development, in order to provide service to Los Angeles, was not included in the initial phase. In June 2012, the new plan included the link between Victor Valley and Palmdale as part of construction for the first phase of the project. Passengers would transfer to Metrolink to access the Los Angeles area.
In June 2020, the company initiated planning on a rail line south of Apple Valley over the Cajon Pass to Rancho Cucamonga to provide more direct Los Angeles service, while not ruling out the Palmdale expansion. The details of other sections have not been announced. Later phases may include extensions to Phoenix, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah; or Denver, Colorado.
In 2009, XpressWest estimated that it would carry around five million round trip passengers in the first full year of operation, with the company charging fares of around $50 for a one-way trip between Victorville and Las Vegas. In 2012, the round-trip fare was planned to be around $89, with trains expected to run every 20 minutes on peak, and up to every 12 minutes as demand requires., the stated frequency is 45 minutes between departures.
In 2023, Brightline West relocated more sections of the route into the median of I-15. The Victor Valley station was reconfigured to have passenger platforms in the highway median. The vehicle maintenance facility was moved from the Victor Valley site to a west of I-15 in Sloan, Nevada, and will connect to the Union Pacific mainline at this location.