Billionaire Wes Edens thinks America’s infrastructure has room for dramatic improvement, and he’s hoping to lead the development through high-speed railway systems.
Edens, who is a private equity investor and owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks and the Premier League’s Aston Villa, wants to build the country’s first electric bullet train by connecting Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
“Vegas-to-LA is probably the best system in the world that hasn't been built yet,” Edens told Forbes. “I don’t think it’s a get-rich-quick business. It’s more of a get-rich-very-slowly business. But the value you’re creating over years or generations I think will be tremendous.”
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Edens owns the only private passenger rail service in the country, Brightline. The company has already started building in Florida and hopes to connect passengers from Orlando to Miami in just three hours by July on trains running up to 125 mph.
The trains connecting California and Nevada, which the company calls Brightline West, will differ from the Florida trains in that Edens aims for them to run purely on electric and renewable power. They will run from Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in Southern California at speeds up to 186 mph.
Edens said the projected cost for the 218-mile project is $12 billion. Brightline submitted an application to the Federal Railroad Association late last week asking for $3.75 billion in grant funds for Brightline West. The goal for the project is to be done in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“It will literally be, not an embellishment, the greenest train in the world,” Edens said.
