A people mover provides circulation within the Primm complex of casinos astride the I-15 just on the Nevada side of the boundary with California.  I became aware of it before moving south in 2014 from promotional literature by the consulting firm Jakes Associates.  I had visited their San Jose offices with the President of CyberTran®  in 2005 to discuss South Bay prospects for ULRT with their founder, the late Andrew Jakes.  Jakes had promoted the SDI UniTrak technology to provide a loop between the three casinos.

Once settled in Pahrump I made a point of driving over to Primm.  It was a weekday and I learned that the people mover only runs on weekends. The complex has lost many patrons to Indian casinos in California, and so there are no longer crowds of people during the week to warrant a mass transit alternative.  Left to taking still pictures of the vehicles parked, I was immediately struck by how closely their appearance resembled the CyberTran vehicle.

The Primm casinos complex was built in the 1980’s as a stop for tourists on their way to or from Las Vegas, one-half hour to an hour’s drive farther north along the interstate.  Having invested millions of $ for initial construction of the people mover in 1988 and then upgrading in the late 1990’s only to suffer a drop in patronage after Indian casinos were legalized in California in 2001, the owners would not be inclined to put yet more $ into an upgrade that may not, by itself, be enough of a novelty to lure people off the I-15.

Yet, this factor is one reason why Primm would be an ideal laboratory for a ULRT demonstration, indeed better than Richmond in many respects.  The existing tram could be shut down entirely for up to a year for retrofitting and it would not be missed.  It is extremely slow and the cars are never loaded to capacity, not even during the peak time of a Sunday afternoon.  Primm is surrounded by desert, the only access being via entrance and exit on/off I-15, although a rail line running just east of he complex would be handy for bringing in heavy equipment and even the CyberTran vehicle.  It is a very dry, warm, sunny climate and soils provide a good foundation, so it is good place to build without all the California regulations.

The attached 4-page Word document was written both to justify to myself the outlay of money and devotion of time for the project I was about to embark upon, and to explain its purpose to the animator that would create the video.

Miniature is often a critical stepping stone for a real-life demonstration of something that people need to see a physical manifestation of and not just video on a screen.  While testing may have been the overriding purpose of CyberTran’s 1/32-scale model using G-gauge track, its value as a sales tool to convince potential investors, public officials, and stakeholders needs to finally be realized in the push to get a “shovel in the ground” for the full-scale demonstration.  I joined the Las Vegas Garden Railway Society (LVGRS) a model railroading club with a view to enlisting members interested in ULRT for building a new model of Primm to look like that depicted in the video.  I was going to offer pay for space to host the model someplace in Las Vegas and also generous compensation for their time in procuring the materials and construction labor.  I would have needed access to the control system used by the Nishinaga’s or at least the code/logic for someone affiliated with LVGRS now residing in Oceanside, California to come up and wire that into minature guideways and stations.

I first took the initiative on my own spending $3,500 for an animation firm in Iowa, 3DX Concepts to make the video.  Re-shooting background pics, overlaying the satellite image with the ULRT network, and extensive coordination with 3DX took the better part of the month of October.  Miniature people would have greatly stretched out the time + cost for preparation of the video, impressive as it is.  But really, our technology being on-demand, it is people requesting to be picked up or let off the vehicle that should drive operation in miniature as well as in real life.  So operation of the model would be decentralized rather than in the hands of a few controllers driving their model trains around a track.  At the February, 2019 annual meeting of LVGRS I dangled an offer of a $100./hour for one member of LVGRS to oversee development of the Primm model, and $25-35./hour to a few other members to assist with procurement and construction.  After a costly legal battle with my sister over my late mother’s care, and then ensuing delays over settlement of her estate, I have no more money and very little time right now to devote to something that remains worth pursuing for the sake of ULRT development in Nevada as well as R&D for CTI’s technology generally.

Ultimately once the model is built and travels the circuit in shopping centers and car dealerships where LVGRS sets up its old-fashioned models for holiday weekends, some publicity experts should be hired to get in on the radar screens of a much bigger audience, as well as the movers-and-shakers in regional transportation and some deep-pocketed investors who would pay full price to license the ULRT technology as I have done for establishing franchises in Las Vegas and Reno.