By Romy Varghese, Bloomberg; July 26, 2019
The company behind the nation’s first privately-owned intercity passenger railway in more than a century is seeking approval from California and Nevada to raise as much as $3.6 billion in tax-exempt bonds for a high-speed train linking southern California to Las Vegas.
Virgin Trains USA Inc. is accelerating plans for a line connecting the Nevada gambling mecca to Victorville, a desert city 85 miles (137 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, after buying a company in March that had done the preliminary work for the project. In September, a California state agency could sign off on Virgin Trains’ application that would result in it being able to borrow as much as $2.4 billion in unrated private activity bonds for the project. A Nevada agency in November will consider a similar request to let the company leverage as much as $1.2 billion in such debt.