Michael A. Barron thinks passenger train service between Las Vegas and Orange County is a no-brainer and presents his own experience last weekend as a case in point.

Barron began driving from his Las Vegas home to Orange County at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. He got about as far as Primm, at the Nevada-California state line, when traffic on the I-15 came to a halt.

“What was I thinking?” wondered Barron, who has made the trip many times over the years and is well-acquainted with the weekend traffic crunch. The trek took six hours.

Barron was headed to his old stomping grounds in Orange County, where he used to be in the mortgage business, to pitch his latest venture to investors Monday: a passenger train to Sin City.

His company, Las Vegas Railway Express Inc., is betting that Southern California motorists will abandon the bumper-to-bumper weekend traffic to take a luxury train through the desert. Dubbed the X Train, cars will be complete with flat-panel TVs, a sports lounge, Wi-Fi, and food and drink service. The line will run from Fullerton to downtown Las Vegas.

X Train’s biggest selling point, Barron says, is that the train trip will take just five hours compared with six, seven or more hours behind the wheel on a typical weekend.

“Just drive that highway once and you’ll be thinking about the train,” he says.

After four years of planning, Barron is getting ready to launch the service at the end of the year. The only hitch: He still needs $150 million.

Barron is hardly the first to chase the dream of Las Vegas-Southern California passenger service. Amtrak ran a train until 1997, when it canceled service due to lack of demand.

Various groups have touted a high-speed train from Anaheim to Las Vegas for 20 years. Another group calling itself XpressWest (formerly the DesertXpress) is pushing high-speed rail from Las Vegas to Victorville. Those efforts faced major obstacles obtaining right-of-way for new tracks.

The X Train team’s approach is different. Barron plans to use existing tracks owned by Union Pacific Railway and BNSF Railway and focus on a niche market of weekend travelers.

Trains would travel from the Fullerton Transportation Center to Las Vegas only on Thursday and Friday with a return trip on Sunday and Monday. The company plans to run one train initially carrying about 1,200 passengers and provide additional service as demand requires.

Barron likens the service to a party train. Passengers will be able to connect their digital devices, watch TV, visit the lounge car, eat and drink and generally enjoy themselves during the 270-miles trip. Adding to the party atmosphere will be “conductresses,” outfitted in the theme of the week such as NASCAR or NFL attire.

The company expects additional revenue by offering packages that will include hotel and entertainment in Las Vegas. “We’ll provide anything you can do in Las Vegas,” Barron says. “People tend to like packages.”

Initial train fares will be $99 each way. Barron notes that the rates compare favorably with Orange County-to-Las Vegas air fares, which recently averaged about $225 each way on Southwest Airlines and its subsidiary AirTran. Test trips are planned this fall with service expected to launch on New Year’s Eve, Barron says.

Barron said he sees a demand for this kind of targeted limited service. About 12 million Southern Californians drive to Las Vegas every year. He says that if Las Vegas Railway can attract just 237,000 travelers or about 2 percent of that traffic, the venture can be successful.

Las Vegas Railway has made substantial progress in the past year. The company has purchased an initial 16 passenger cars, which it is refurbishing for $1 million each with a new, sleek look. The engines, painted in a shiny black with the X Train’s distinctive slashed red X logo on the front, will be leased and operated by Amtrak.

The company signed a conditional agreement with Union Pacific in November for use of its tracks from Daggett outside Barstow to Las Vegas. The agreement will ensure the X Train gets preferential access on the line so it won’t be slowed by freight trains.

Barron says BNSF and Amtrak have agreed to allow access to their leg of the route into Fullerton. A reservations service also has been signed, and a vendor to provide onboard chefs and meals has been hired.

But there is the issue of money. A year ago, the company officials said in an SEC filing they needed $35 million in capital to get started. After the company announced the Union Pacific track deal in November that figure rose to $80 million to $90 million. In a quarterly earnings report released last week for the period ending Dec. 31, the company says it now needs to raise $150 million.

Barron says the numbers have changed as the company refines its estimate of costs as various parts of the business are secured.

Meanwhile, the bills are beginning to mount. The company reported a net loss of $3.7 million for the nine months from April to December of last year and a cumulative deficit of $15.5 million.

Under the Union Pacific agreement, Las Vegas Railway will pay $56 million for upgrades and use of the tracks. The company must pay $27 million of that by March 31. If the company fails to make the payment to Union Pacific, it will lose its $600,000 deposit.

Last week’s quarterly report notes the financials were based on the assumption the company will continue in operation.

“Although a substantial portion of the company’s cumulative net loss is attributable to a lack of revenue, management believes that it will need additional equity or debt financing to implement the business plan,” says the report. “These matters raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

Barron dismisses those concerns.

“In a startup situation, you always have that,” Barron said. “We don’t have any revenue.” He expects to turn a profit four to six months after service launches next year.

Las Vegas Railways is a public company that trades for 12 cents a share over the counter.

Charles Rotblut, a vice president at the American Association of Independent Investors, notes that an investment in any startup is a gamble.

“If you really want to speculate, figure out what you would take to the casino and maybe you will hit the jackpot twice,” he says.

He suggests small investors wait until six months or a year after the train is up and running to see if it will attract enough riders to have staying power.

Barron, however, is confident based on the business development and startups he has done before. He began his career in 1971 as a planner with the city of Monterey and worked on redevelopment of Cannery Row and Fisherman’s Wharf.

He started several mortgage businesses in Orange County and most recently was chief executive of the Shearson Financial Network, parent of Shearson Home Loans in Irvine. Shearson Financial Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2008. Barron says the company did not sell subprime loans but got caught in the mortgage industry meltdown.

Barron gave a presentation at the Southern California Investor Forum in Newport Beach this week seeking $2.5 million in bridge funding. He raised $2.3 million in a similar effort last year.

He says he is leaving the big fundraising up to Gilbert H. Lamphere, the company’s board chairman. Lamphere is a longtime railroad man who is on the board of CSX Corp. and has served on the boards of Canadian National Railway, Illinois National Railroad and Florida East Coast Railway. He is managing director of Lamphere Capital Management, a private investment firm, and chairman of FlatWorld Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded private equity company.

At this juncture, however, Barron says plans remain on track.

“There’s more to come,” he says.

Contact the writer: 714-796-3646 or mmilbourn@ocregister.com