PRESIDENT TRUMP: "The train that's being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst managed project that I think I've ever seen... Hundreds of billions of dollars over budget... We're going to start an investigation of that." pic.twitter.com/CPEgTdv16w
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 4, 2025
The love of high-speed trains.
I've been a big critic of the romantic enthusiasm for high-speed trains in present-day American political discourse, so I was fascinated to run across this rather similar romanticization of high-speed rail in some Nazi propaganda (from 1932):The Nordic landscape cries out to be traversed by rails over which express trains can speed. It is a characteristic of all Nordic vehicles to increase their speed. Ever-increasing velocity is a built-in characteristic of the rails themselves, the rails by which, in the Nordic experience of the world, the whole world is penetrated. Rails that are already in existence and those that must constantly be constructed for ever newer, ever faster vehicles on which men who experience the world Nordically may strive toward ever new goals. The Nordic soul experiences its world as a structure made up of countless thoroughfares — those already at hand and those still to be created — on land, on water, in the air, and in the stratosphere. It races like a fever through all segments of the Nordic community, a fever of speed which, infectiously, reaches out far beyond the world of the north and attacks souls who are not Nordic and for whom, at bottom, such action is contrary to their style and senseless.If you are really enthusiastic about high-speed trains, please consider the possibility that you are deranged.
In the Nordic experience of the world, the whole world is penetrated....
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85 comments:
The US isn’t Europe. These high speed rail projects are just graft
Agree with Trump on this. Voted against Newsome on this issue.
It would be interesting to see how many relatives and friends of politicians have benefited from construction costs from ithis
boondoggle
Has it received any USAID money? I'll take odds it has.
I am a raging cynic when it comes to these rail projects--high speed or light metro rail. The proponents always sell them with pie in the sky promises. I've developed my own metric. The project will (1) take twice as long to complete as promised; (2) it will cost at least twice as much as projected: (3) ridership will be less than half of that projected: (4) revenues will be less than a quarter of that projected. Governor Brown's High Speed Choo Choo to Nowhere was sold in a ballot resolution as requiring just $8 billion in state funds, for a project that was to cost $33 billion total. Cost is now projected at something well over $100 billion. I think it was supposed to be complete and running by 2022. It's not. It doesn't run from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles. The roadbed is somewhat complete between Merced and Wasco (short of Bakersfield) and not a piece of rail has been laid yet., Other than that, it's a "highly successful project" sarc.
The US has a railroad, and we use it to move freight. The system works fine.
Airplanes work better for us. Railroads can't be easily changed if travel patterns change, tracks are needed between the origin and destination and the entire route is vulnerable.
Why do we always need to spend billions of dollars to figure out something is a bad idea?
They were intended to funnel money from US Treasury to undisciplined blue states. Remember that budget we told you we needed? Well we were WAAAY off!
Grifters are more sophisticated now and don’t need a justification to steal money…
Unlike most critics of this project Trump put the issue of graft front and center. And unlike most critics he is in a position to ask the DOJ to take a closer look at WTF happened to the billions allocated.
The US government needs to cut spending deeply. Everybody knows this; we're headed for economic disaster if we don't change course. It's not going to be done by a couple of big-ticket items, but rather by thousands of smaller items. How much do we save by stopping to fund this boondoggle?
A number of years ago the LA Times ran an excellent article discussing the project and specifically the plan to tunnel through the San Gabriel mountains. The Times spoke to geological experts, including the geologists who consulted on the Chunnel and the new St. Gothard's tunnel through the Swiss alps to Italy. The consensus was that nobody knows how much it will cost because nobody has ever constructed a tunnel through a major fault like the San Andreas fault. The geologists said they didn't know how it could possibly be done, when the tunnel would be constantly subject to the two sides of the fault moving in opposite directions relative to each other. Yet the project sponsors said they were sure they know what the total cost of the project would be.
Between 1863 and 1869 the United States built its transcontinental railroad linking the cities on the east coast with cities in California. During half those years the country was fighting a Civil War. In twelve years — twice as long! — California has completed 171 miles.
It began under Jerry Brown. And actually - to Newsom's credit (small credit) - He actually shrank the scope. Smart - but only smart by half - as the thing sits and turns into a relic in the desert.
The US no longer builds or fixes things. We are too busy worshiping pride flags, and listening to angry homosexuals yell and scream at cake bakers.
The California HSR project was sold on the premise that it would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, be funded by public and PRIVATE money, with a projected construction cost of $33 billion. It was put before voters as a proposition in 2008. I voted no. Unfortunately, it passed.
If I remember correctly, the HSR Authority was initially funded by $5 billion of taxpayers money to which they would solicit the same amount in private investment capital (which never materialized). Construction so far, is mostly bridges and overpasses with a very visible overpass segment crossing over highway 99 in Fresno. Money has been spent on land acquisition (about 80% of what's needed) and the bridges. It's far over budget and waaaaayyy behind schedule as Trump noted. In his first term he wouldn't give them federal money that had been promised by Bronco Bama.
There absolutely needs to be an in-depth Federal investigation, the sooner the better.
Did I mention how projected ridership numbers were mostly made up?
If it's stopped how will people get from Fresno to Bakersfield in a timely manner?!
They both will have to find another solution.
I was listening to Hugh Hewitt talk about THIS. Hewitt was so grateful that Trump mentioned it.
That thing started under Jerry Brown.
Billions wasted. It's Stonehenge in the desert.
Literally everyone in California, Republican and Democrat, knows the project exists for graft and graft alone.
You win all of the internets for today!
Krautprop: "It is a characteristic of all Nordic vehicles to increase their speed."
Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum: "You National Socialists are all quick-shooters!"
JSM
I can't vouch for the numbers but someone posted comments to this effect the other day: For $10 billion SpaceX launched 300 rockets into orbit. For about the same $10 billion California has laid 1800 feet of rail (on the high speed rail project).
It's a huge money suck that could better be spent fixing potholes and adding freeways. We have a highway system in CA that designed for a state with 15 million people and a population of 40 million. Jerry Brown purposely refused to build more freeways in the hopes people would adapt to using public transportation. Public transportation is a joke in CA and the freeways are chronically jam packed with too many vehicles and too few lanes.
There is a lot of building going on now thanks to Biden's spendapalooza Inflation Creation Act but it's too little too late AND it makes it miserable to try driving anywhere and has for the last couple of years. example: 40 years ago a drive from Sacramento to San Francisco took 1 1/2 hours. Sometimes less if you left early or travelled at night. Now that same trip takes 2 hours most days and can take 2 1/2 hours if there's an accident somewhere.
The Crooks of California have been salivating over this boondoggle/money mill and enriching themselves off it for decades. GOP/Nazi governor Schwarzenegger was filling his pockets from it for years.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-13-me-rail13-story.html
Peachy, Jerry Brown did start the project but at the time state officials admitted the $6 billion budget was just enough to get the state committed so they couldn't back out. In other words it was planned as a grift from the start.
Newsom did cut it back from SF to LA. Now it's supposed to go from Merced to Bakersfield. Like anyone's going to pay the price of an airline ticket from SF to LA to ride on a train that goes from Merced to Bakersfield.
Wait a minute, Trump spoke with the press again today? You mean, he's letting us know what his policy directions are going to be and why, in real time, like, directly? What a concept.
I haven't heard anybody complain about this access, or compare him unfavorably to Joe, yet. Anything's possible, of course.
CAttlefornia just passed a $50 million bill to assist departments and pet projects resist Trump. Dear Donald, now might be A REALLY GOOD TIME to cut all federal funding to that state.
Bakersfield pop. 433,000 - Merced pop. 86,000 People from all over the world are gonna want to ride that line furshure.
The train is a profitable "boondoggle". Abort.
Red DOGE, Red DOGE, send Musk right over.
“Incompetence is – in the limit – indistinguishable from sabotage” – Elon Musk
Correctamundo! LA and Sacramento had trolly lines for many years until sometime in the 1940s they realized all of what you just said. You can't move the lines to adjust for growth or changing travel patterns. Both cities realized buses were cheaper and could easily adapt to new routes with no added expense. The trollies died out and buses took their place. But - the Left being the Left - they sold Sacramento on the light rail idea. It's not a bad way to commute if you live close enough to a station and you work is close enough on the other end AND you work regular hours. I took my grandkids on the light rail just for fun. I won't ever do it again.
Ridership is down sharply in the last 5 years. The problem is the mentally ill and drug addicts that ride light rail. I won't use it myself unless I'm packing. No way. Some bum stood 5 feet from my grandsons ranting about who knows what. Scared the hell out of me. Fortunatley the kids were oblivious to it.
For that money California could have purchased about 8 billion school lunches and "fed ALL the children" in CA approximately 3119 separate meals, which is enough to cover 2090 school days (breakfast and lunch), equal to over 10 years worth.
Just for comparison.
We were made of sterner stuff back then.
Is that project still going? I thought it was stopped.
Worse it took away prime farmland in the Central Valley, America's breadbasket, for nothing zip zero nada.
Which reminds me: Rush would be really enjoying broadcast excellence every day during THIS Trump term.
If the project is not dead, here's the reason why - Headline: "Newsom weakens financial disclosure requirements for LA officials as relief pours in"
the olden days?
back when we had a "President" that picked someone to run the Dept of Transportation..
because he 'liked Trains!'
Eight years ago we left Petaluma at 5:30 a.m. to catch our flight home from SFO. It took us three (3) (tres) hours to get there. This Wisconsin gal couldn't wait to get back home. Loved northern CA. SanFran...not so much.
ALL of this, just shows; that Billionaire Trump refuses to look at: The Big Picture
and, The Big Picture is: Rail projects provide BILLIONS of dollars in graft and grift
Billionaire Trump HAS his money, and Doesn't CARE that there are LOTS of Democrats out there that NEED (or, at least, WANT) MONEY.
Rail projects are HOW you get that money!
Just look at the politicians that ran North Haverbrook.. Those guys made out like (literal) bandits!
If you understand (as all of California does) that the entire point of the project is graft, it’s been anything but incompetent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg5rfBfWT4
The fundamental issue is that most people in the state live in the north or the south, and there's a huge earthquake-vulnerable mountain range in the middle. As a bunch of the north-south traffic is non-urgent truck freight, and as people tend to drive the length of the state during holidays, it was never going to be mainstream. But, Japan has bullet trains. But, moving away from the automobile is the "right thing to do." But, California has cutting-edge universities and technology. But, California is home to both Silicon Valley and Hollywood -- "we changed the world." Pride goes before destruction.
I'm guessing the unfinished portion will be super useful for moving fertilizer ($#!+) and farm laborers between the cattle ranches and the fields in the central valley.
By driving down the relatively uncrowded Highway 99 past the sites of the old Giant Orange burger stops.
https://www.weirdca.com/location.php?location=134
ALL the work done on the Merced to Bakersfield stretch can NEVER be used for ANYTHING other than a HSR from Merced to Bakersfield.. Which will NEVER be completed.
here's a Serious Question(s):
How many TONS of CO2 were produced in this (landmoving, concrete, etc)?
How many TONS of toxic stuff were released doing this?
How many reservoir covers could have been fixed with this money instead?
How many LGBTQIA2S+ fire personnel could have been hired with this money?
Marion Iowa used to have trolleys..
When i was little i remember the rails in the middle of the roads.
I also remember asking my mom about WHY? and she said:
"that's how people used to get around, before everyone had cars."
Seemed weird to me then.. It seems weird to me NOW..
THANK GOD for cars!
Interested Bystander - well indeed. No one is going to ride it even if they do finish it. It's a lose -lose for tax payers.
The Italian Futurists (big allies of you know who) were also overly excited by fast trains.
They’re graft in Europe, too. According to Eurostat, 88% of all travel in Europe is by car. It’s 86% here.
Besides Act 10, the greatest thing Scott Walker did for Wisconsin was stop the high speed rail fantasy between Milwaukee and Madison.
Sure you did, Readering, sure you did.
Then tell us, Prole, how the referendum starting it passed if everyone knew it was graft?
I kept thinking during the whole LA fire debacle that something seemed almost deliberate, like sabotage. Now I know it was.
And then there's drilling through the Tehachapis.
Almost nobody in California wants this train. It's a complete waste of tax money and is horribly overpriced for what it is. (What it isn't is "high speed rail" from Los Angeles to San Francisco.)
Democrats are nothing if not Grift/Graft specialists. California voters were suckered into approving a $9Billion bond for hi-speed rail… that was $177Billion ago.
If the train ever exists, it will be pulled by freight locomotives pressed into service owing to the failure of Amtrak locomotives, like on Amtrak today.
Next they’ll be building one from Tucson to Tucumcari… Tehachapi to Tonapah
Not quite--the roadbed and maybe the viaducts over the rivers and highways are complete--I've been driving up and down Highway 99 a couple of times a year and saw some progress. But I don't think they've laid the rails down--and until the rails are down and a train is running, it's not complete.
In California graft is not a bug, it’s a feature.
You know who inspired the Interstate Highway System, right?
Adolph Hitler.
And who gave us the first jet airplanes?
Don't believe the British propaganda. It was the Nazis.
High speed rail won't make any money or solve current problems here, but that's as much America's problem as it is railroads'.
@Skeptical Voter, I apologize for accepting the number of miles of track from an article in Wikipedia without double checking.
I hasten to mention the Brightline rail system in Florida, and the Brightline West between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga. These seem to be private enterprises, unless they turn out to be bankrolled by USAID.
It’s almost impossible to build a house in California much less a high speed rail project. They’ve been diligently working on the connection between Merced and Fresno for years as part of the project. Less than an hour by car and a decade by rail.
Nordic this, Nordic that... sheesh, what drivel.
It occurs to me that one could substitute Green for Nordic and transform that lunatic screed into a paean that would move Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to wet her pants in ecstasy.
The Merced to Fresno spur endangers the rare blue-speckled singing ant. Pause all construction immediately!!
Consider the plight of the rare blue-speckled singing ant. All it wants is a little food and a little space to sing its little heart out. (An appreciative audience would be nice, too.) All your favorites -- oldies like "Lollipop, Lollipop" and up to the minute hits like "Fat, Juicy, and Wet". But the rare blue-speckled singing ant is patriotic, too. Your tears will flow when you hear its rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and see it bend all six knees. But your mad lust for high-speed rail disturbs its peace of mind. Cease and desist, if not for the ants, for the children!
To be fair, Stonehenge meant something.
47k for trans comic books in Peru or whatever. It doesn't make a dent in the 7 trillion budget, but you're right. This is what Trump brings with him. A businessman's mentality. "EVERY nickel comes off the off the top". I remember when he moved the embassy in Israel. He was poopooed for bragging about upgrading an existing building for 300k instead of building new for 3b. Whoopee! A whopping savings of .0002% (math?) of the national budget. Trump gets it, and I'll say it again. Every single nickle comes off the top.
If anyone doesn't know what every nickel off the top means open a small business. You'll figure it out quick. Or fail.
Apropos of the Nazis, the Asia-go high speed railway was also a well known symbol of the Japanese Kwantung Army regime in Manchuria in the late 1930s. I think it was the first line to offer air conditioned carriages. The postwar shinkansen project in mainland Japan was in part a further development of high speed rail plans originally developed at the South Manchuria Railway Co.
President Trump learned that lesson as a child. On Sunday afternoons, Fred Trump would take his family to one of his construction sites to gather useable nails left in the dirt to rust by careless carpenters. Careful management made Trump a billionaire.
Look, all the cool countries have high speed rail. You don't want the cool countries laughing at us, do you?
30 million dead Chinese, and all they got was a lousy choo-choo.
Critics of programs such as this point out the risks in pouring billions of dollars into a project that the public doesn't seem to want. There is miniscule public desire to take a cab to downtown LA to get on a high speed train that will take 3 to 3.5 hours to get to San Francisco, where you will either have to rely on a rental car or public transit.
You can either drive (6.5 hours with no cabs or waiting for the train to arrive) or fly (1 hour in the air, with the assorted inconveniences of air transit). I've been actively engaged in business in California for 48 years, and make one or two trips a year to San Francisco. On a given day, not all that many Angelenos need to go to San Francisco, and vice versa. Highway 5 has long lonely stretches. Each day, there are about 19,000 commercial airline seats for sale each way between the LA area and the Bay area. Assume a load factor of 80% and that means 15,000 passengers. How many will want to get off the plane and take a cab or public transit to downtown LA to get on one of the 3 or 4 trains a day to endure slower rail transit? Not very many. This is a money pit.
I remember seeing pictures of the trolleys on the walls of the Carnegie Library. Always wondered why a town the size of Marion needed trolleys.
All high speed rail projects in USA are mega slush funds for political kick backs. They are crimnal fraud equal to Windmills.
As a ninth grader, I was appointed by my school to the state-wide Model Congress. We convened in Raleigh for eight hours of simulated politicking and speechifying. I was given the role of a conservative senator (I was onery and irascible even then) to enact as I saw fit. About half of the other participants were enacting liberal/progressive legislators, and true to form they were richly endowed with utterly mad spend-spend-spend harebrained projects, particularly a high-speed monorail line from DC to NYC. (The legendary "Marge vs. the Monorail" animated classic was far in our future, and one-legged choo-choos were therefore not yet a laughing stock.)
Four hours of tirades, gasconades, and buttonholing in the morning, followed by lunch, two more hours of playacting politics, then the voting from 3 to 5. My colleagues and I defeated the Monorail Bill in the Senate by a good margin, which only goes to show that children can be smarter than adults.
And fortunately even in these days of Evers, with the GOP holding the legislature there has not been any move to push rail again. Although I believe Milwaukee has some pathetic people mover downtown.
@tcrosse mentions Brightline West, related to the Brightline intercity train service in Florida. I would love to see high speed rail between LA and Vegas. I hope it comes to fruition. Brightline appears to be private. The LA to Bay Area train is definitely a money pit. Besides our politicians, the only folks who profited with this project are the consultants who drafted the environmental impact reports, and the folks who "designed" the routes.
If they're willing.
I tired to use the Brightline for my daily commute, but it was often a nightmare. I would drive to the Ft. Lauderdale station and pay $5 to park all day. (My group worked 4 tens rather the usual 5 eights) and ride to the Boca Raton station. From there I biked west on Yamato Road to IBM, about two miles. In the cool months this wasn't a problem, though getting caught in a pop-up thunder shower was. It got nasty when a "no bikes in the passenger cars" policy was decreed. To take my I bike I had to check it as oversized baggage, pay the fee, and reclaim it before the train left for West Palm. That became nightmarish when a handler couldn't find my bike. Ripped off and marooned!
"...and the Brightline West between Las Vegas and Ranch Cucamonga."
Who's the conductor, Bugs Bunny?
Newsom isn’t a fan of the train, he inherited that mess. But Newsom fell for the sunk cost fallacy, so he won’t kill that disaster.
Newsom isn’t a fan of the train, he inherited that mess. But Newsom fell for the sunk cost fallacy, so he won’t kill that disaster.
No fan of Newsom, but he was against the train. He inherited that mess. Newsom’s problem is that he fell for the sunk cost fallacy and won’t kill the project because of the money already spent.
If they could actually find ONE TRAIN that was revenue-neutral, they might have something.
A lot of Hitler's pre-war actions were civilian cover stories for military efforts. The VW Beetle (a design stolen by Ferdinand Porsche) was marketed as "the people's car," but the money they paid funded the military / no cars delivered. The highway system likely facilitated military transport to the fronts.
*Nancy Pelosi's husband buys land with federal grants for a high speed rail system from Sacramento to San Diego. Land he couldn't buy was stolen via eminent domain. Pelosi's husband sells the land purchased with federal funds to Diane Feinstein's husband who got federal grant funds to purchase the land from Pelosi's husband. Then he sells the land to the actual developer of the High Speed rail system who purchased it with federal grants. The people of California and the United States purchased the land 3 times making millions of dollars for both the Pelosi and Feinstein families.”
https://x.com/Sassafrass_84/status/1886869481554645430?s=19
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