Here's another article about the idea of putting a high-speed train between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The DesertXpress one sounds like about the dumbest, certain-to-fail idea I could imagine. It would carry passengers to and from Vegas but would go no farther west than Victorville, which is about 80 miles east of Los Angeles. What they don't seem to get is that that's the difficult 80 mile part of the trip from L.A. to Vegas. The appeal of a rail system to Vegas would be to be able to avoid the bumper-2-bumper trudge to get out of Los Angeles…and you'd have to go through that to get to Victorville and pick up the train there. You'd also be leaving your car in a very strange place. The main competing proposal wouldn't go from L.A. to Vegas, either. Angelenos would have to drive to Anaheim to pick it up…and wouldn't.
I'm thinking an L.A./Vegas high-speed train would be great. But I'm not going to see a useful one in my lifetime.