Roth to Lead Inspection of Fast European Trains

County Supervisor Don R. Roth has invited about 25 influential friends and associates to join him when he travels to Europe in March to inspect high-speed train technology, which could be used on a rail line between Anaheim and Las Vegas.

Roth, vice-chairman of the California-Nevada Commission, which is planning the super-speed train, said that the panel will pay at least part of his expenses and those of other commissioners who make the trip, but that the other county travelers will pay their own expenses.

“We’re taking along . . . top-notch Orange County citizens who will pay their own way,” Roth said. “I think it’s good to have people willing to spend $3,000 of their own money to see what transportation is going to look like in the 21st Century.”

Among those who are set to go on the 10-day trip are Buck Johns, Doy Henley and John Cronin, all prominent members of the Lincoln Club, the Republican Party’s club for major donors; Costa Mesa businessman Aram H. Keith; Anaheim Chamber of Commerce director Allan B. Hughes; Costa Mesa Mayor Peter F. Buffa, and consultant Frank Michelena.

Lincoln Club President Gus Owen and Anaheim City Manager Bob Simpson also might go, Roth said.

Henley, a Tustin resident, said he and his wife decided to go “to see the new wave of the future. Besides, I’ve got to go over there anyway on business.”

Details of the trip are being worked out by Jim Ort, an Anaheim travel agent. Ort said the group will probably fly to Bremen, West Germany, about March 12, where they will ride a prototype magnetic levitation system capable of 300 m.p.h., built by TransRapid.

Then the group will probably travel to Paris and ride French high-speed trains, which run between several French cities, Ort said.

“It will give the movers and shakers of the community an opportunity to feel the difference between an elevated magnetic levitation train and a steel-wheel-and-steel-tracks” train system, Roth said.

“We need to get a good amount of movers’ and shakers’ support of this. . . . If we run into roadblocks later, we’ll have people who are familiar with it.”

The commission last week mailed requests to several multinational consortiums for proposals to build the rail line for estimated cost of $5 billion to $7 billion. The firms have until Jan. 24 to submit a $5,000 filing fee, along with a letter expressing interest in the project. Formal proposals, along with an additional $495,000 deposit, will be due in July, after which the 16-member commission will select a builder for the privately financed line.