I got this email today about X-Trains partning with Amtrak to provide service to Vegas, So I thought I would share so we can discuss, I know a lot of people ask about train service to Vegas
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chael Barron, President and CEO, Las Vegas Railway Express, Inc.
Greetings shareholders and friends: After three long years developing our competency on the X Train concept, I am proud to report that we are opening our travel company which will be doing all the booking for the X Train. It is called X Train Vacations and soon you will be able to begin booking passenger rail travel on a number of rail routes in the USA. This is NOT in lieu of our LA to Vegas X Train service, but rather in addition to it.
Our X Train service from LA to Vegas is still making progress with the major component being the development of a $10 million new station facility here in Las Vegas. That process will take about one more year to complete. We have begun the site planning and architectural and civil engineering and now have our preliminary plans into the City to review and approve. We are on government's timetable here and expect approval by August. Facility construction of this sort takes time and our project is no exception. This item is the pacing item on running our service between LA and Vegas.
Funny thing, though. While working on this service for the X Train, we began to be approached by others to see if we could run similar casino fun train style services on other rail routes in the US. Turns out there are several routes which start from a metropolitan area, like LA and go to a casino/resort destination, like Vegas, only smaller. Our light went on here and we began speaking to Amtrak about the possibility of hooking our casino fun train cars onto their existing train which already go to the destinations we want. No problem. And, no stations to build and no railroads to negotiate with for access. We just book the cars & run.
So, we decided to begin business on these routes while we finish the LA/Vegas X Train route. We have started our own travel & tour package agency, which we needed anyway to earn commissions on our Vegas route from various suppliers of tourist related products. Turns out, many of our hotel partners here in Vegas own hotels in other parts of the country too. They think our idea is a good one so we could book hotel rooms and other services, just like we plan here in Vegas. We are hiring travel personnel here in Vegas to handle the bookings. Rail travel is up in the US, so timing is good.
Here's the good news, we can be operational and collecting revenue from bookings on several rail routes we have identified in as little as 90 days. It's good practice for us too, with the LA/Vegas route coming on line in a year or less, we will already have our operations down pat by the time the really big volume come from that route.
We are developing our booking website now and are securing package deals with the hotels
along the way. Our arrangement with Amtrak is ready whenever we are to haul the trains. we have several routes selected to start and we already own 16 rail cars and have sources for others. It's exciting to be starting with the kind of service we have envisioned for so long. Our business model is now even bigger than before and X Train Vacations is getting its launch as a national brand for Casino Fun Trains. Stay tuned for more info on our routes and general progress on all fronts.
----
chael Barron, President and CEO, Las Vegas Railway Express, Inc.
Greetings shareholders and friends: After three long years developing our competency on the X Train concept, I am proud to report that we are opening our travel company which will be doing all the booking for the X Train. It is called X Train Vacations and soon you will be able to begin booking passenger rail travel on a number of rail routes in the USA. This is NOT in lieu of our LA to Vegas X Train service, but rather in addition to it.
Our X Train service from LA to Vegas is still making progress with the major component being the development of a $10 million new station facility here in Las Vegas. That process will take about one more year to complete. We have begun the site planning and architectural and civil engineering and now have our preliminary plans into the City to review and approve. We are on government's timetable here and expect approval by August. Facility construction of this sort takes time and our project is no exception. This item is the pacing item on running our service between LA and Vegas.
Funny thing, though. While working on this service for the X Train, we began to be approached by others to see if we could run similar casino fun train style services on other rail routes in the US. Turns out there are several routes which start from a metropolitan area, like LA and go to a casino/resort destination, like Vegas, only smaller. Our light went on here and we began speaking to Amtrak about the possibility of hooking our casino fun train cars onto their existing train which already go to the destinations we want. No problem. And, no stations to build and no railroads to negotiate with for access. We just book the cars & run.
So, we decided to begin business on these routes while we finish the LA/Vegas X Train route. We have started our own travel & tour package agency, which we needed anyway to earn commissions on our Vegas route from various suppliers of tourist related products. Turns out, many of our hotel partners here in Vegas own hotels in other parts of the country too. They think our idea is a good one so we could book hotel rooms and other services, just like we plan here in Vegas. We are hiring travel personnel here in Vegas to handle the bookings. Rail travel is up in the US, so timing is good.
Here's the good news, we can be operational and collecting revenue from bookings on several rail routes we have identified in as little as 90 days. It's good practice for us too, with the LA/Vegas route coming on line in a year or less, we will already have our operations down pat by the time the really big volume come from that route.
We are developing our booking website now and are securing package deals with the hotels
along the way. Our arrangement with Amtrak is ready whenever we are to haul the trains. we have several routes selected to start and we already own 16 rail cars and have sources for others. It's exciting to be starting with the kind of service we have envisioned for so long. Our business model is now even bigger than before and X Train Vacations is getting its launch as a national brand for Casino Fun Trains. Stay tuned for more info on our routes and general progress on all fronts.
