California reached a significant milestone on February 3, in its high-speed rail project, as Governor Gavin Newsom announced the completion of the California Railhead Facility in Kern County.
The completion marks a step forward in building the country’s first high-speed rail system and advancing clean, connected transportation, according to a statement from the governor’s office.
The milestone allows California to begin receiving and staging materials needed to install high-speed rail track and systems along the corridor.
“We’re laying the foundation for cleaner, faster, and more connected transportation while investing in communities and creating good-paying jobs,” Newsom said in the statement.
The 150-acre site near Wasco will serve as a central logistics hub for delivering, storing, and deploying materials needed to electrify and operate the system.
A total of 119 miles of the rail project are under construction, more than 80 miles of guideway have been completed, and 58 structures (including bridges, overpasses, and viaducts) are finished, the statement noted.
The milestone reflects progress on the ground and a delivery approach focused on partnerships with the governor and Legislature, said California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri.
“The railhead facility is a critical step in the track-installation process and keeps us on pace to deliver this system smarter, faster and more economically,” Choudri said.
The achievement comes a year after Governor Newsom launched the construction of the railhead facility. Since then, the Authority has invited industry to bid on laying electrified high-speed rail track and systems, according to the release.
Suppliers have been secured for long-welded rail, and the Authority has begun acquiring key materials needed for installation. These efforts coincide with ongoing work to attract private-sector partners to help deliver the system more efficiently.
To date, California’s high-speed rail project has generated approximately 121,910 job-years, which is the combined number of years worked in full-time employment supported by the project, and about $25 billion in economic output, according to the statement.
During fiscal year 2024-25, more than 98% of project spending supported California businesses and workers. In 2025, the project supported 13,200 job-years, generated $1.3 billion in wages, and contributed $2.9 billion to the state’s economy.
About the Railhead Project
Following the Legislature’s recent renewal of the state’s Cap-and-Invest program, the high-speed rail project has its most stable financial outlook in a decade and has secured an annual commitment of $1 billion through 2045, according to the statement.
A year after railhead construction began, the Authority has completed installation of freight tracks at the site near Wasco.
Work is underway on the rail project, with 171 miles under design and construction from Merced to Bakersfield.
The project continues to progress across the state, with 463 miles of the 494-mile San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim system fully environmentally cleared and ready for construction.
“b-b-b-b-b-b-bUt wHuT aBoUT tHe tRAin tO NoWHerE?”
Yeah, what about our billions of dollars that appears to have been wasted by our current governor?
Yes BASICLOWED – and those same people “are ready and willing to just ‘forget’ about” a rapist who is spending billions of our tax dollars on a massive violent and brutal attack on immigrants and US citizens while at the same time protecting child rapists and releasing violent criminals and actual, convicted drug kingpins guilty of killing thousands of American kids from prison for the single and sole reason being that they kissed his feet and lined his pocket…and some are not.
So yeah, guy….. keep whining and crying ONLY about money one side is spending while the other side is destroying our country in every sense of the word.
We’ll never forget those who stood with cruelty and lawlessness.
Hypocrisy is the lifeblood of the right wing, who constantly justify the most appallingly destructive enterprises on the basis that they “provide jobs”, but here
“121,910 job-years” is deemed to be wasted.
The hypocrisy of lefty lib claims of Republican hypocrisy, is astoundingly hysterical to us Americans.
I called out a specific instance of hypocrisy … and you responded in the stupid dishonest and PROJECTING way that we all expect.
STEVE – real “Americans” don’t bend over for authoritarians who brag about raping women and openly mourn for child r*****s who lose their titles/jobs.
At this point, you should be able to lick your own boots. Keep bending!
More crying and victimhood from Basil . Card carrying victim. Let’s talk about the billions in corruption and grift by Don and the Oligarchy you voted for.
Read the article and stop your confused crying.
That is the positive side, here is the other side —
The budget has ballooned from an initial $33 billion to over $100 billion.
Voters approved this in 2008. The fact that the first passenger won’t board until the early 2030s makes it hard for the public to stay excited.
By building the Central Valley segment first (Merced to Bakersfield), the project earned the “Train to Nowhere” label, as it doesn’t yet connect the major population centers of SF and LA.
It lacks a stable, permanent funding source, leaving it at the mercy of shifting political winds in both Sacramento and D.C.
Yeah, to be fair, who the actual f wants to take a train from L.A. to or through Bakersfield.
If they couldn’t build it on the coast they shouldn’t have bothered, that’s where the population is.
CITIZEN – good point. Honestly, if it weren’t for the daily “wHuT aBoUT tHe tRAin tO NoWHerE” crying from MAGAts every chance they get, I would have forgotten about this. Glad to see some progress, but it definitely is not what we hoped for.
Great thing about Democrats though is we can express frustration or even opposition to certain policies/actions by our Dem leaders. We’re mature and independent enough to not swallow and guzzle down everything without question even when it clearly hurts us.
MAGA could do well to learn from their more intelligent, critical thinking and more honest “foes.”
So this milestone is a laydown yard for the construction of this thing? And 80 miles completed to date??Since approval in 2008??? And $15.5 billion spent???? This is a lefty lib California as lefty lib California gets!!
Many Democrats will agree that this project hasn’t gone as planned. More importantly, Republicans are supporting child sex abuse and trying to keep it hidden in the closet because the president they voted for is a perpetrator. Also highly important, Republicans have created a big surveillance authoritarian machine to violently take the rights of citizens away on the street – as they brutalize brown people over civil immigration matters. Many of the MAGAcons who post here learned their racism. People aren’t born bitots. I imagine their parents and grandparents were the one screaming the racial slurs against black people as they attempted to attend the same schools as white people. You see, history will remember what trash allowed children to be raped and the crimes covered up, and will remember the Gestapo police forces sent by Trump. The train in California – won’t have that big of an impact in the history books 100 years from now.
GT – excellent point. What people like STEVE, DOOLY, CHUFF, BASIC, GIZZ, KAPOSER, etc love and praise are diabolical actions and policies that will scar American history for centuries (if we survive that long). People will read about ICE and Trump and the Epstein files and the morally bereft, bigoted and poorly educated MAGAts who supported them much like we read about all past authoritarians and those who helped them rise to power. Kids will recall how Grandpa/Grandma were constantly screaming at “lefty libs” and the “loony left” and ratting out their gardeners and neighbors to be dragged away from their crying children as they stood inside behind the blinds and bending over for jackboots. Those kids will hopefully learn to despise everything granny taught them much as we (well, good Americans) grew up learning to be disgusted by how we enslaved people because of the color of their skin and how we raped and murdered our way across someone else’s land in the name of “God.” Some things are so objectively wrong from any standpoint, that revulsion is the only response.
MAGAts like these will go down in history just the same as the racist scum who supported slavery, the KKK and the Nazi movement.
I suggest they all write preemptive apology letters to their descendents. Well, assuming they can write as many have proven here to be unable.
So I am talking about the high speed rail and it’s continued failures…and all you are talking about is racism, child abuse, and hatred for President Trump and us conservatives. This is the mind of a lefty lib lunatic. and of course SACK is doing the same in the post in reply to yours. Birds of a feather.
Aw STEVE dom…. it’s so cute that you think you were “talking about” something like it was a meaningful, mature and educated comment and not a drooling, moronic “lEfTy lIb” rant.
Nothing you people say is intellectually honest and the fact that you support the horrific things you do means no one is going to take you seriously. Especially when you say “LeFTy liB” every other sentence.
It’s like when people see monkeys at the zoo and say “awww, it thinks it’s people!”
It’s even funnier when you think your’re an “American” and we aren’t.
Tell us, S’Odom, where in the Constitution or anything our fore fathers did, does it sound like racism, child r*****, killing and deporting people without due process (ouch, you’re gonna have to learn that one) is “American?”
LOL now watch you try to say none of those things are happening 🤣🤣🤣🤣
You’re so obsessed the libs bro, sorry to say they’re just not that into you.
“So I am talking about the high speed rail and it’s continued failures…and all you are talking about is racism, child abuse, and hatred for President Trump and us conservatives. ”
Bingo Steve_0 – we are talking about what piles of heaping steaming sod MAGAcrats are. “Us Conservatives” morphed into a a nihilistic terror group reminiscent of the Hltler supporters during the Nazi rise to power in the 30’s.. So to listen to you judge or even discuss politics is a complete joke and waste of time for the adults in the room.
What you are doing is what you are always doing: lying.
“racism, child abuse, and […] President Trump and us [reactionary right wingers]”
Yes, these all go together.
Smart people recognize failure regardless of it being red team or blue team.
You’re not one of them, so STFU
Donald Trump’s name, his Mar-a-Lago resort, and other related references appear approximately 38,000 times across more than 5,300 documents. Gavin Newsom’s name does NOT appear in the Epstein files. Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’s names do not appear in the Epstein files either.
….. 38,000 times.