Las Vegas and Grand Canyon

Proposed Beamway Lines

These are beamway lines which should be realizable with the technology described on on-nor.net .

This line goes from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon Village, and it is 350 km long. The trip with an air cushion train should take about 1½ hr.

The line may also be extended further eastwards along the canyon as indicated with a dotted line. An additional canyon excursion line goes down towards Supai. (45 km – about 20 minutes on rubber wheels)

The dotted lines in the bottom of the map are additional high-speed lines to Los Angeles and Phoenix. (Each about 450 km. – 2 hours – from Las Vegas)

The descent into the canyon is shown here. The line can be further extended (dotted line) if its presence in the canyon (so near Supai) is acceptable.

This descent route is suggested because the mountainside is not so steep here – not more than 45° (convenient for the construction workers) - and the mountainside is not very curled. The beamway slope doesn't here exceed 8° (1/7), and this should not be problematic if rubber wheels, most of them powered, are used.

If these lines had been planned through conventional thinking, a special funicular had been built down the canyon, and a quite different high-speed technology had been chosen for the lines to Los Angeles and Phoenix. And then a third technology might have been selected for Las Vegas to Grand Canyon. And then a fourth technology for light rail within the attached cities. With beamway technology, the same trains can be used everywhere, using bogies with rubber wheels on the canyon line (and perhaps within cities), and air cushion bogies elsewhere, for perhaps 250 km/h.

Background maps: Screenshots of Google maps (Terrain).