Las Vegas station was a passenger railroad station in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vega ...

. It was connected to the rear of the Plaza Hotel & Casino and was in service from 1971 until the demise of the '' Desert Wind'' in 1997.

Las Vegas Union Pacific Station

Union Pacific Station, Las Vegas, Nevada (74656)

Prior to the construction of the casino, part of the site was used for a

Streamline Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial desig ...

train station. Constructed in 1940, the station was upgraded with neon lights in 1946. The station served several Union Pacific trains a day, due for Los Angeles to the west and Salt Lake City, then St. Louis and Chicago to the east. In 1954 early morning departures, the ''

City of Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

'' and the ''

City of St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which ...

'' headed to Los Angeles headed from the station, and afternoon and evening trains, the ''

Challenger Challenger, Challengers, or The Challengers may refer to: Entertainment Comics and manga * Challenger (character), comic book character * ''Challengers'' (manga), manga by Hinako Takanaga Film and TV * ''The Challengers'' (TV series), a 197 ...

'' and the '' Gold Coast-Pony Express'' departed for Los Angeles. All of these trains, save for the ''Gold Coast,'' lasted until

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

assumed responsibility for the Union Pacific's passenger operations in May 1971. This station was demolished in 1971 and replaced by the Union Plaza Hotel, which included a small waiting room to be used as a station for Amtrak trains.

Union Plaza Hotel and Casino station

The Union Plaza Hotel and Casino, originally called the Union Plaza in reference to the

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...

railroad station that stood at the site, opened on July 2, 1971. Its original owners included local business people

Sam Boyd Samuel A. Boyd (April 23, 1910 – January 15, 1993) was an American entrepreneur, casino manager and developer. He was noted for introducing successful marketing, gambling and entertainment innovations into the casino gambling industry, as w ...

Howard Cannon Howard Walter Cannon (January 26, 1912 – March 5, 2002) was an American politician from Nevada. Elected to the first of four consecutive terms in 1958, he served in the United States Senate from 1959 to 1983. He was a member of the Democrati ...

Jackie Gaughan John Davis Gaughan, Sr. (October 24, 1920 – March 12, 2014) was a casino owner and operator from the early 1950s in Las Vegas, Nevada. He had an ownership stake in many casinos throughout his career, but he is best known for his ownership of th ...

, and Frank Scott. Passenger service returned briefly in 1976 with Amtrak's ''

Las Vegas Limited The ''Las Vegas Limited'' was a short-lived weekend-only passenger train operated by Amtrak between Los Angeles, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the last in series of excursion trains run by Amtrak between 1972–1976 serving the Los Ang ...

'' and in 1979 with the '' Desert Wind.'' Before the discontinuation of the ''Desert Wind'' train route on May 10, 1997, Amtrak's Las Vegas station was located at the Plaza. The station and ticket windows were directly connected to the hotel. It was the only train station in the U.S. located in a casino. Today, Las Vegas is served by Greyhound Bus from the

Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub The Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub (also known as Salt Lake Central on Utah Transit Authority TAroutes and SLC by Amtrak) is a multi-modal transportation hub in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States served by the Blue Line of UTA's TRAX light ...

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, t ...

. Its two Las Vegas bus stops are located at

McCarran International Airport Harry Reid International Airport is an international airport in Paradise, Nevada, and is the main government airport for public use in the Las Vegas Valley, a metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Nevada, about south of Downtown Las Vegas. ...

and in

Downtown Las Vegas Downtown Las Vegas (commonly abbreviated as DTLV) is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the original townsite, and the Downtown gaming area was the primary gambling district of Las Vegas prior to the S ...

, near Union Plaza station.

Future plans

Amtrak planned for restoration of Las Vegas rail service surfaced almost immediately after the discontinuation of the ''Desert Wind.'' These plans recommended using

Talgo Talgo (officially Patentes Talgo, SAU) is a Spanish manufacturer of intercity, standard, and high-speed passenger trains. Corporate history TALGO, an abbreviation of Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol (English: ''Lightweight articulated tr ...

trains between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, similar to Amtrak's '' Cascades'' route in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

. This plan was never implemented and Las Vegas went without passenger rail service. Las Vegas is the largest metro area in the US without passenger rail service. In 2005 DesertXpress Enterprises LLC was formed in an attempt to restore passenger rail service to Las Vegas Valley, though their terminal is planned to be a newly constructed station in

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, south of

and the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of the Las Vegas cit ...

. The project was acquired by Florida-based Brightline and changed its name to

Brightline West Brightline West is a proposed privately run high-speed rail route linking Las Vegas Valley and Rancho Cucamonga in the Greater Los Angeles area through the California high desert. The line will connect with existing rail at Rancho Cucamonga ...

in 2020. A competing company, Las Vegas Railway Express, also plans to begin passenger rail service between Las Vegas and Southern California, though at lower speeds.

References

External links

Las Vegas, Nevada Amtrak Station (USA RailGuide – TrainWeb)
{{Las Vegas Valley Former Amtrak stations in Nevada Transportation in the Las Vegas Valley Downtown Las Vegas Buildings and structures in Las Vegas Railway stations in the United States opened in 1971 Railway stations closed in 1997