SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California High Speed Rail Authority this week issued a Request For Proposals for the contract to build track and related systems for the 119-mile first segment of the project, between Merced and Bakersfield.
The $3.5 billion contract will be one of the nation’s largest for rail infrastructure. Proposals from interested companies are due March 2, 2026; more details are on the RFP are available here. Along with track construction, the project will include the catenary electrical system, train control, and communications system.
“Bringing this contract to market today is a major milestone of our new delivery strategy: building faster, smarter, and more economically,” Authority CEO Ian Choudri said in a Nov. 26 press release. “Together with our innovative direct purchases of track and systems materials, this action puts us on an accelerated path to laying the first true high-speed rail track in the Western Hemisphere next year.”
The RFP was announced as the authority completed track installation at a 150-acre railhead facility in Kern County, which will serve as the logistics hub for the project and will soon began receiving shipments of track and other construction materials. From there, those materials will be delivered to the points of installation along the initial segment. Groundbreaking on that facility was held in January [see “Ceremony marks start …,” Trains.com, Jan. 7, 2025].
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When (if) they finish track installation, will there be a track link to an existing railroad to deliver rolling stock or will the train cars need to be delivered by truck? If there is a link, where and to which railroad?
Trusting in the way they seem to do things in California under Gavin Newsom, a giant canal will be proposed inland so that trains can be barged from the ocean directly to the Merced/Bakersfield line so that the equipment can be delivered directly where it is needed. Of course this will cost 100’s of ZIllions of dollars but will be okayed by Newson because it will create jobs and encourage more illegal immigration to build the things all while contractors and consultants will over run costs because of all the project funds that were syphoned into their pockets. I believe this is how things get built in California. LOL! (actually its not funny… its a sad thing…)
Going back a couple of weeks on these pages, we really do need someone with sharp teeth at TRAINS MAGAZINE. Many years ago, John G. Kneiling, P.E., the Consulting Engineer (or the Insulting Engineer), passed on. It was years before that TRAINS dropped his column. (Allegedly pressured by Amtrak President W. Graham Claytor.) It would have taken Kneiling about one paragraph to demolish CalHSR into the dust.
And I’d like to think if John G. were still writing, the number of P.E. ‘s who have nothing good to say about Brightline West would double. Right now unfortunately it’s just me. Kneiling plus me would make two.
As we discussed a couple of weeks back, TRAINS has superb writers and editors, couldn’t possibly be better in anyone’s dream. But for some reason, these people seem reluctant to get down and dirty discussing the current economics of passenger trains.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Based on their progress so far, and the money that has been blown into oblivion with no results other than grading and overpass infrastructure, it will end up being the High Speed train to nowhere. Who’s going to ride it from Merced to Bakersfield? They would have been better off laying rail in an areas where it would at least mean something. The poor screwed over tax payers of California will be funding 10 people a day from Bakersfield to Merced or vice versa just so Gruesome Newsom can say he accomplished something. Come to think of it, by the time any rail gets laid he will probably be out of office and won’t even be able to claim that if things progress the same as they have so far… What a joke…
Another good example of misplaced priorities is the NEC. The ride Wed. NYCPenn-DC was 900+ passengers according to the conductor, top was 125mph, no different from 50-90 yrs ago. On time dept and arr, but rough ROW. Deferred maint. due to lack of $$$.
BTW: the Milw. “freeway” system primarily benefits the ‘burbs.
Re: the last sentence. I’m a ‘burbanite myself, Curtis. Town of Brookfield, Waukesha County. I don’t mind the benefit. IH 94 how I get to the Amtrak station. Did you think I walk? How do you think I got to Milwaukee the thirty years I volunteered for Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity every Saturday? Do you think I teleported with ten toolboxes under my arm?
Right. If people find that the Central Valley project is slow and expensive, wait till they start going over the mountains. With catenary yet. Any estimate of the number of expected passengers per day for the Valley route when (?) complete?
I expect CalHSR will replace the Gold Runner in the Central Valley, with no new connection ever completed north of Merced or South of Bakersfield, just the existing Gold Runner route. I expect the same number of passengers as the Gold Runner now has.
When will taxpayers wise up and pressure their politicians, to quit dumping money into this bottomless pit ?
When will TRAINS MAGAZINE tell the truth about CalHSR and its twin brother, Brightline West.
They (the Hwy Industrial Complex} continues to be allowed & encouraged to expand & build more roads despite the till (HTF) being bankrupt & every dollar of the projects mentioned & a multitude of others around the country are being funded by siphoning from the Treasury & thereby adding to the deficit. In addition to proceeding with these projects which were conceived before or without consideration of the changes that have occurred in traffic patterns since Covid which many (here) conveniently refer to when it comes to transit projects. Private enterprise is not going spearhead any HSR without the Govt having substantial “skin in the game”. The money spent on CA HSR is a drop in the bucket compared to hundreds of billions of non user tax dollars being used expand a system that cannot sustain itself financially & has been purposely overbuilt for the convenience of a few & the financial benefits of others.
Fortunately, Galen, The National Treasury spigot has been cut off due to lack of real progress. I will be interested how many contractors will put up money and bonds to back it when the RFP is announced and no Federal money is involved. I don’t think they will like taking IOU’s from the nearly bankrupt state of Californification…
Actually, all is not rosy in brew town. The rebuilt interchanges such as the Marquette or Zoo date to the middle-late 1960’s under the aegis of “Mayor Meier”, pronounced mayor mayor, whose fetish was freeways. The rebuilds are horrid. Lost in the shuffle was the hi-speed line transit line into downtown. One visible remnant is the line of hi-tension towers, another is seen where the line ran between the cemeteries…now there is a proposal to double story the expansion due to lack of space. Also gone by is a plan to tear the E-W part down in downtown replaced w/a boulevard w/rapid transit in center and greenery. The howling was deafening. Poor Milw. is littered w/abandoned or underused ROW’s awaiting a regional plan.
CURTIS —– So you want to turn an Interstate Highway into a boulevard with greenery and a rapid transit line (transit from where to where?). Is the traffic from the Interstate Highway supposed to evaporate? You really want that traffic on a surface street.
Curtis, I gather you have been living in New York. The plan now is for all eight lanes between the cemeteries will be at grade. Due to political pressure, the proposal to have one roadway at grade, one above grade (it was NEVER to be double-deck) has been discontinued. And btw I never understood why the two level freeway would have been a problem. All freeways have two levels, by definition.
Just to the north due to political pressure, STH 175 freeway will be turned into a surface artery. An absolutely horrible idea. Take a below-grade freeway with easeful bridges over it and turn it into a busy surface road. Go out and look. The current STH 175 freeway goes through a very nice neighborhood. Where the freeway ends at Lisbon Avenue and the traffic comes to a surface arterial is the worst neighborhood in the city.
Maybe we should talk about infrastructure in general. From Charles home state as reported/copied and pasted from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. $1.7 billion to rebuild 3.5 miles and 7 years to rebuild and add two lanes to existing freeway. Existing right of way with no land purchase, no utility relocations, let alone legal battels. Just trying to expand an existing. We are spending massively on freeways as well. But hey, assuming Charles is bot anyways
The $1.7 billion Interstate 94 East-West corridor expansion project, which started Nov. 3 and will cover a 3.5-mile stretch of the freeway between 16th and 70th streets on Milwaukee’s west side, is scheduled to take eight years to complete.
The project will reconstruct aging roads, widen the freeway from three to four lanes in each direction, and redesign the Stadium Interchange to a diverging diamond interchange.
Construction is expected to finish in 2033, though some stretches of highway will be completed earlier, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
In America, freeways are rebuilt because they are at the end of life, and/or are too costly to maintain, and/or are unsafe, not to provide for more capacity. In contrast, CalHSR is completely about a new transportation alignment for theoretical traffic that may or may not materialize. In any event, it will never carry all that much traffic compared to a road.
I don’t have the numbers in front of me, so I’ll have to estimate. Wisconsin IH 94 in Milwaukee County carries at least 120k vehicles per day. Which is about 30k, 35k, 40k more VPD than Amtrak carries passengers in a day.
IH 94 from 16th to 70th Streets, notably including the Stadium Interchange, is pretty much the original construction, probably from the late 1950’s. Also notable is the necessity to build eight lanes in the narrow path between the two cemeteries west of the stadium. Traffic must be maintained during the several years. IH 94 has lasted, therefore, for about 65 to maybe almost 70 years, with periodic resurfacings and here and there a new bridge deck.
Mile per mile, IH 94 will probably cost less than Amtrak’s much-needed NEC rebuilding in Baltimore and in North Jersey to Manhattan.
Your points are valid, Timothy. I’m not arguing with you. I’m trying to put it into context. Nothing comes cheap these days.
Amtrak NEC improvements are desperately needed. CalHSR is an expensive toy sold on a bunch of lies.
How many tickets does CaLHSR have to sell to cover just the items in this article. Which are the tiniest, barely measurable, fractions of the overall cost LA to SanFran.
The wider public, not knowing much about rail, is horrified at the expense of a project from Merced to Bakersfield. My response? They don’t the half of how atrocious this project is. They don’t know a tenth of it.
I would like to know the progress Merced to San Jose on the north, and Bakersfield to Burbank to Los Angeles on the south. Have the routes been finalized? Property acquired? Environmental statements filed? Utility relocation started? Anyone know the costs? To call CalHSR a scandal doesn’t begin to describe it.
I live in a state were projects come in on time, on budget. Milwaukee’s Zoo, Mitchell and Marquette Interchanges on the interstate highways, for examples. CalHSR isn’t a cost overrun or a time delay. It’s an outright lie.
“The wider public, not knowing much about rail, is horrified at the expense of a project from Merced to Bakersfield. My response? They don’t the half of how atrocious this project is. They don’t know a tenth of it.”
Charles, please share ALL THE FACTS with the Trains.com community about this statement of yours. Then after that please share it with the California Legislature because YOU KNOW EVERYTHING about this project and obviously they don’t.
Oh, c’mon Mark. Did you really think I couldn’t answer that question? Go to Burbank and look around. Do you see a railroad being built?