Well, here we go. Calling in the FBI. A potboiler in the making? 17 years, billions “spent”, and only nowhere to nowhere to show for it. “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
People nationwide are beyond frustrated with these projects that costs billions yet never get finished or even started. It’s been 17 freaking years not one mile of track laid the only thing they have accomplished was electrifying the bay area commuter lines. Beyond that nothing at all except for nonstop environmental impact studies and money wasted on who knows were or grafted into which leaders pocket.
Need to look no further with the Newsome fraud of 120 billion estimated to be spent and 17 billion to this point spent, only 65 miles of rail guide way produced ( not track) guide way, and only 5 miles of bridges in some 20 years. Now they want another 100b and 10 years to complete. Kiley (R) from third district is launching an investigation as we speak into where the money went. Real important as Newsome is still thinking of making a run for the WH in 2028. This kind of fraud should be bipartisan everyone should be concerned when a government fails to produce what they were contracted to do.
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The Transcontinental railway across America was finished in 7 years
Most of the work was done between 1865 and 1869.
A few things of note: The specs were pretty lenient, 2.2% grade and 10 degree curves. It was pretty much wide open territory, no underground utilities to worry about. There was money to be made off of operation as well as construction. There wasn’t much concern about permitting and environmental impact statements.
The big problem with CAHSR was a lack of competency and backbone in the project management, coupled with unrealistic expectations of what was possible.
The Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland. Took 17 years to complete from first blast to signoff. Electric 
rail. 35 miles long. So not only was this completed on budget . They had to go through the Swiss Alps to accomplish. Only 12 billion to complete. Swiss electric train on time and schedule and on budget. !
This is the top barrier in talk of building new passenger rail lines in the U.S.
There are law firms in the U.S. which specialize in environmental law practice to stop development.sd
Add to that layers of government workers conducting permitting processes who all have to take their time to earn their paychecks.
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A good point, though there are a few things to be considered:
First is that the Swiss have lots of experience with tunneling through the Alps, where the CAHSR folks had almost zero experience with high speed rail and maybe a few have had experience with very large scale construction projects. The Swiss had a very good idea of what they were getting into.
Second is there wasn’t much in the way of underground utilities to deal with in the path of the tunnel.
Third, being mostly underground, there wasn’t the problem of acquiring land for the right of way.
Last but not least, the Gotthard tunnel had a very well established economic benefit.
A French group with TGV experience recommended that the CAHSR line follow I-5, while the route under construction is following US-99. The former would have been much easier and cheaper to build, but the latter had the population centers. In my opinion, the US-99 route would have been designed for 125 to 150 mph peak speeds to accomodate the stops.
All good information…maybe we’re to busy trying to move mountains
Erik, CAHSR comments: Recently with news of this troubled project, ONE completed overpass was pictured and should a MOW be naughty, he could drop ballast literally straight down into someones swimming pool. Yep present path is in populated area. LOL endmrw0308251421
And wasn’t the governments share in that endeavor the gift of right of way only?
The CHSR first infused by “Obama TARP funds” and again by “ Biden Inflation Reduction Act (sic) funds”
I’m surprised nobody hasmentioned that the Union Pacific was bankrupt by 1872, and does 'Credit Mibilier; ring a bell?
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There were a number of shady characters in the UP management, and Credit Mobilier’s corporate shell was used to get profit out of construction. Huntington and Crocker were paying more attention to establishing a profitable railroad, which was helped by a large number of mines in easy reach of the CP mainline.
Also, it seems many times with a white elephant type of project, the original “investors” will take a bath getting it started. Then a different group will gain the rights to it for pennies on the dollar, and turn it into a success. The Chunnel comes to mind. Who knows, maybe Brightline in this case?
Originally, wasn’t all the land given to the railroads the driving force to build the Transcontinental railroad? They were able to develop a lot of real estate into towns and sell lots of land.
I think the government gave the land in a checkerboard fashion. The land was of little to no economic value until the railroads were built. Here’s one explanation.
The biggest issue with the original UP was that the land it crossed wasn’t considered farming land. Then you had a native population that wasn’t exactly friendly towards being pushed off their land. It took finding the mineral wealth in Wyoming and development of the technology to make farming possible in Nebraska plus the homesteading of the area to help the development of traffic for the Union Pacific.
The Central Pacific later Southern Pacific was coming from a state that already had a population and traffic base.
The Oregon Trail passed just a few miles south of our house. At that time, thousands of people passed through here to reach the farmland of California and Oregon, not realizing the land they were crossing was free and great farmland.
Today, our section of Nebraska is some of the best farmland in the country, and our county is in the top ten counties in corn production. The UP mainline is about 25 miles north of us.
And speaking of right of way, didn’t SPRINT take advantage of running fiber optic across railroad right of way?
Because SPRINT was sold off to GTE before fiber optic was usable for long distances. One reason Anschutz (sp?) wanted the SP was for string fiber optic along the right-of-way.
As for the transcontinental railroads, one often overllooked reason for the push for building the railways was for defense of the west coast. If a country was foolish enough to try to invade, the US could have thousands of reinforcements within a few days.