by Thornton Waite/photos as noted
The City of Las Vegas was a relatively short-lived Union Pacific train running between Los Angeles and Las Vegas that debuted in 1956. When it was inaugurated, the schedule was used to evaluate General Motors’ experimental Aerotrain, which proved to be unsuccessful in this and other railroads’ demonstration assignments. This was a time when several manufacturers and railroads were experimenting with modern ultra-lightweight trains such as the Talgo and Train X, none of which succeeded at the time. When the lightweight Aerotrain also proved to be unsuccessful, UP assigned conventional equipment to the City of Las Vegas. The final edition of the train ran in 1967 after years of irregular service, a name change, and declining patronage.
In Amtrak’s early years, it tried to revive Los Angeles–Las Vegas service, but without success. Today, Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is so congested that Brightline West is in the process of building a high-speed rail line from Southern California to the gambling capital.
The years prior to the City of Las Vegas
In the years after World War II, Las Vegas was becoming increasingly popular as a gambling destination. The availability of air conditioning and more liberal divorce laws also helped its popularity. Las Vegas was 335 miles and seven hours by train from Los Angeles, so it was relatively close and convenient to reach. At this time, Union Pacific had three main line trains, the Domeliner City of Los Angeles, the Domeliner City of St. Louis, and the Challenger Domeliner, and they all stopped at Las Vegas. In February 1956, the only special service to Las Vegas provided by UP was a setout coach with reserved seats for passengers traveling on the Challenger between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The railroad was finding its main line trains did not have the space to accommodate the increasing number of travelers to the Nevada city.
ABOVE: Advertisement for the City of Las Vegas featured “Vegas Vic” promoting the Aerotrain and the “Free Buffet” on board. —Author’s collection
Las Vegas was growing. The new $16 million Tropicana opened in April 1957, by which time there were 11 major hotels on the “Strip,” with a total of more than 3,000 rooms. Other hotels, including the downtown Fremont, had another 500 rooms, and there were additional rooms available in numerous motels.
Major airlines TWA, United, and Western, along with local airline Bonanza, all served Las Vegas. These airlines carried 46,000 passengers a month in and out of the airport, and Clark County was spending money on the new McCarran Airport. (As a point of reference, in 2023 a total of 57.6 million passengers traveled through this airport, including a record 5.47 million passengers in October.) UP looked at automobile travel as its primary competitor for this business, and in its advertising emphasized the ease and convenience of rail travel as opposed to a long car drive.
The City of Las Vegas
On November 20, 1956, UP announced it was going to start a new passenger service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Because Las Vegas was only seven hours from Los Angeles by train, the railroad decided to inaugurate a day train running exclusively between the two cities, naming it the City of Las Vegas. This was in keeping with the railroad naming its top passenger trains for the cities they served. It was also known informally over the years as the Gamblers’ Special, Crap-Shooter Special, Crap-Shooter Commuter, and undoubtedly other names. The introduction of a new train was contrary to the approach of neighboring Southern Pacific, which had told the public earlier in the year that passenger trains were no longer viable.
ABOVE: Union Pacific Train 115, the westbound City of Las Vegas, at its namesake terminus behind EMD E9A 962 soon after the train’s September 1957 re-equipping. By this time, the train comprised an E-unit and streamlined coaches, which provided a more comfortable ride and a consist that could be easily adjusted to accommodate variations in traffic. UP’s Moderne-style Las Vegas station was built in 1940. —Union Pacific; UNLV University Libraries Collection
UP decided to lease one of General Motors’ two new aluminum-bodied Aerotrain demonstrators (set 1001) for six months for this service. The distances traveled and the schedules made it so that one trainset would suffice for the new service. The trainset, which had been evaluated on New York Central between Chicago and Detroit from June 1 through July 14, 1956, departed Omaha, Neb., for California on December 12, 1956.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal prior to a publicity run to Las Vegas on December 16. Celebrities attending the ceremony included Vegas Vic (the famous neon cowboy at Las Vegas, represented by Austin Kermit Wright); Vegas Vicki (represented by Joyce Johnson); Nevada Lieutenant Governor Rex Bell; UP Traffic Manager John Padden; “Two-Gun” Abe Schiller (a Las Vegas publicist); and representatives from political offices in Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area. After the press run to Las Vegas, the train returned to Los Angeles for its inaugural revenue run.
Operations
The first regularly scheduled trip of the City of Las Vegas ran on December 18, 1956, with Train 116 carrying 179 passengers eastbound out of San Bernardino and 172 on the return Train 115. There were helpers on both Cajon Pass and Cima Hill, with a crew change in between at Yermo, where the train switched from Santa Fe to Union Pacific tracks. UP’s mechanical department determined that a helper was required on the eastbound train from San Bernardino to Summit and from Kelso to Cima in order to maintain the schedule. Only five minutes would be saved if a helper was used on the westbound run from Victorville to Summit, so the railroad did not use one on the westbound trains. The trainset had conventional AAR couplers on the front and rear for switching and helper service…