In my E-mail this morning, was this headline from the International Rail Journal Magazine:
So what did the State of California think would happen, with a Businessman and Builder, who’s made his living building construction projects, as President of the United States, when California decided to cancel its High Speed Rail project, for which a Federal Grant had already been issued?
Trump administration withdraws $US 1bn California high-speed grant
CALIFORNIA is preparing to launch legal action against the US government after the Trump administration withdrew nearly $US 1bn in grant funding for the state’s high-speed rail programme.
So what did the State of California think would happen, with a Businessman and Builder, who’s made his living building construction projects, as President of the United States, when California decided to cancel its High Speed Rail project, for which a Federal Grant had already been issued?
California applied for a Federal Grant to help pay for a High Speed Rail project from L. A. to San Francisco, during the Jerry Brown Gubernatorial Administration. It was granted during the Obama Presidential Administration. Once Gavin Newsome became Governor of the “Bear Republic,” he (correctly) decided that the State of California could not afford to pay to finish the project, with its projected costs spinning out of control, and announced its termination, leaving a partially constructed right-of-way in the Central Valley of California, from Merced to Bakersfield, going from “no where” to “no where.” This violated the terms of the Federal Grant Contract, so the Trump Administration withdrew the grant, threatening to start collections on the amount of money already wasted on a project that that never met its goals, and likely will never host a railroad, to probably become an intrastate highway right-of-way(!).
Full disclosure: I’m a railfan. I like trains. High-Speed Rail in California, connecting San Diego, Anaheim and Los Angeles with San Francisco and Sacramento would have been “cool,” and possibly even been the “seed” to extend High Speed Rail over the Siskiyou to Portland, Salem, Tacoma, Seattle and to the Canadian border near Vancouver, British Columbia.
HOWEVER, even as a railfan, I understood this project was doomed from the “planning stages,” simply because the California HSR had decided to try another route out of the Los Angeles Basin, instead of the tried and true route over the Tehachapi Pass (building a parallel line to the current Union Pacific/Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroad line that’s been around for over 100+ years). They were going to build a new route with la 16-mile tunnel, through the Coast (Mountain) Range and across the San Andreas Fault. Additionally, California NEVER managed the project. Even today, the project does not yet have a route selected over the Pacheco Pass that would once again cross the Coastal (Mountain) Range and the San Andreas Fault a second time, in order to enter the (San Francisco) Bay Area through Gilroy, San José, and Millbrae into San Francisco. And I consider the fault of this financial debacle to be laid directly at the feet of the Obama Administration, at the very least, for not to requiring AMTRAK to administer and lead the project to control the money that was spent.
The cynical tax payer that I am says “enough!” With the American economy about to go into the toilet because of unrestrained spending, and with Social Security running out of money in the near future, we don't need to squander precious funds.
I look forward to California challenging the Federal Government in court over the termination of the grant. Maybe California should have Silicon Valley corporations fund the completion of the project, even if it means changing the scope of the project and going to Elon Musk’s Boring Company and turning it into the world's first “Hyper-Loop” project.
Full disclosure: I’m a railfan. I like trains. High-Speed Rail in California, connecting San Diego, Anaheim and Los Angeles with San Francisco and Sacramento would have been “cool,” and possibly even been the “seed” to extend High Speed Rail over the Siskiyou to Portland, Salem, Tacoma, Seattle and to the Canadian border near Vancouver, British Columbia.
HOWEVER, even as a railfan, I understood this project was doomed from the “planning stages,” simply because the California HSR had decided to try another route out of the Los Angeles Basin, instead of the tried and true route over the Tehachapi Pass (building a parallel line to the current Union Pacific/Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroad line that’s been around for over 100+ years). They were going to build a new route with la 16-mile tunnel, through the Coast (Mountain) Range and across the San Andreas Fault. Additionally, California NEVER managed the project. Even today, the project does not yet have a route selected over the Pacheco Pass that would once again cross the Coastal (Mountain) Range and the San Andreas Fault a second time, in order to enter the (San Francisco) Bay Area through Gilroy, San José, and Millbrae into San Francisco. And I consider the fault of this financial debacle to be laid directly at the feet of the Obama Administration, at the very least, for not to requiring AMTRAK to administer and lead the project to control the money that was spent.
The cynical tax payer that I am says “enough!” With the American economy about to go into the toilet because of unrestrained spending, and with Social Security running out of money in the near future, we don't need to squander precious funds.
I look forward to California challenging the Federal Government in court over the termination of the grant. Maybe California should have Silicon Valley corporations fund the completion of the project, even if it means changing the scope of the project and going to Elon Musk’s Boring Company and turning it into the world's first “Hyper-Loop” project.
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