Dolly Parton -- August 27, 2026

Locator: 51563PARTON.

Link here. 

When fires swept through the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016, killing 14 and displacing thousands, a local legend answered the call to help.

Dolly Parton, the country music luminary, who died this week at 80, offered $1,000 per month to families who had lost their homes in Sevier County. The money kept flowing for months, and the songwriter and star behind hits including “My Tennessee Mountain Home” ultimately sent $12.5 million back to the county where she was born.

Ms. Parton’s support for the fire victims was just one node in a constellation of charitable activities that distinguished her as one of pop culture’s most prolific philanthropists. With cash gifts, benefit concerts and telethons, Ms. Parton supported causes that included early childhood literacy, wildlife conservation and the development of the Covid-19 vaccine. 

She became so effective at distributing her own money that the ultrawealthy asked her to distribute theirs. In 2022, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his future wife, Lauren Sanchez, gave Ms. Parton $100 million to distribute to causes of her choosing. And this summer, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce gave Ms. Parton’s Imagination Library $2 million to fund the distribution of children’s books.

And then there's this: this was in TWSJ yesterday -- link here -- 

Tag: bullet train 

 

Oasis -- Lost Hills, CA -- Tesla's Huge Supercharger Station -- Buc-ee's On Steroids -- March 22, 2026

Locator: 50293MUSK.  
Locator: 50293EVS.  

This is a most interesting development.

• the distance from San Francisco, and then the distance to Los Angeles
• is easily reached in all EVs -- incredible, brilliant
• on top of that, it exactly matches the Bullet Train distance and route
• once folks get used to this EV Supercharging station, they will see no need to switch to the Bullet Train.
• Brilliant.
• Audacious.

Tesla: Supercharger station -- link here. 

• Oasis
• Lost Hills, California;
• 11 MW -- solar
• 10 Megapacks  -- 39 MWh
• 168 stalls
• self-contained energy system 

Bullet Train Update -- February 7, 2026

Locator: 49926BULLETTRAIN.

Updates

April 18, 2026: "getting ready to lay track" for the 119-mile Merced-to-Bakersfield (Central Valley) segment. 

The state hopes to have this segment operational between 2030 - 2033, or in other words, by 2033 -- that's seven years from now. Laying 119 miles of railroad track on flat land with no major obstructions can take anywhere from a few months to over a year, depending on whether the timeline includes only the physical laying of track or the entire project, including surveying, permitting, and grading. My understanding is that all the preparation work has begun.

Original Post

Without this project, neither California nor Governor Newsom have any marketing photo ops. 

 

Definition of a railhead: simply a staging area for material. It may or may not have any rail. In this case, there is yet no rail laid for the actual project.

In early February, 2026, Governor Newsom announced a major milestone for the California high-speed rail project, a railhead in Kern County, to begin staging material to complete a 119-mile segment of the "bullet train" route through the "central valley," from Merced to Bakersfield, combined population, 500,000.

Governor Newsom says the projects hopes to be a fully operational high-speed rail segment by 2033. 

Current cost estimates for the rail from "Los Angeles" to "San Francisco" is $135 billion; original estimates, $33 billion, made in 2008. There are no time-of-completion estimates for the entire "LA-to-SF" project," but it now well accepted it will be well beyond 2040, assuming it is even completed. 

Bullet Train Update -- Trump: "You're Fired" -- The Day The Music Stopped -- January 6, 2026

Locator: 49814BULLETTRAIN.

Biggest under-reported story today: California quietly abandons legal battle to restore $4 billion in federal funding for long-delayed high-speed "bullet train." The first link will probably not get past the censor; but the ABC link should get past the censor. 

California will try to find partners instead. LOL.  Translation: we're not going to hear about the Bullet Train any more. The project is dead. 

From the ABC link:

OAKLAND, Calif. -- California this week dismissed a lawsuit officials filed against the Trump administration over the federal government's withdrawing of $4 billion for the state's long-delayed high-speed rail project.

The U.S. Transportation Department in July slashed funds for the bullet train aimed at connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. The Trump administration has said the California High-Speed Rail Authority had “ no viable plan ” to complete a large segment of project in the state's farm-rich Central Valley.

The authority quickly filed a lawsuit, with Democratic. Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the federal government's decision “a political stunt to punish California.” The authority said this week it would focus on other funding sources to complete the project estimated to cost more than $100 billion.

“This action reflects the State’s assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner in advancing high-speed rail in California,” an authority spokesperson said in a statement.

The Transportation Department did not respond to a request for comment on California dismissing its lawsuit. President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have both previously slammed the project as a “train to nowhere.”

“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in July. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”

Two New Permits; NDIC's "Daily Activity Report" Still "Down" -- September 22, 2025

Locator: 49188B.

Bullet Train: Trump re-directs $2.4 billion previously meant for California's "bullet train" to other transportation projects around the country. Link here. 

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Back to the Bakken

The "Daily Activity Report" is still "down." Data was provided by a reader, thank you very much. Nothing in today's daily activity report except two new Petro-Hunt permits. 

WTI: $62.64. Link here.

Active rigs: 34.

Two new permits, #42328 and #42329:

• Operator: Petro-Hunt
• Field: Little Knife (Billings County)
• Comments:
• Petro-Hunt has permits for two Tachenko wells, NWNE 17-144-98, 
• to be sited 525 FNL and 2472 / 2505 FEL. 

Sacramento Blindsides Merced -- August 31, 2025

Locator: 49002BULLETTRAIN.

From one of the sources above:

California High-Speed Rail Authority board members heard words of frustration and disappointment from Merced officials Thursday – nearly a week after a report from the agency suggested possibly removing Merced from the bullet train’s initial operating segment.

Local officials like Frank Quintero, Merced’s deputy city manager, say they were given no advance notice before the authority released its 2025 Supplemental Project Update Report on Friday, Aug. 22.

Quintero, who addressed the board of directors in person during the public comment session of Thursday’s meeting in Sacramento, said the city of Merced has considered the High-Speed Rail Authority as a partner going back to the project’s inception more than two decades ago.

Despite that partnership, Quintero said Merced recently felt abandoned, receiving “no communication, and no courtesy heads up” prior to the release of the report that included the potential for Merced to be left off of the route for initial operations.

“We felt blindsided on Friday, Aug. 22 when the project update was released suggesting Merced be resequenced,” Quintero said.

Quintero added that Merced has always stood by the authority when they needed letters of support or someone to testify on behalf of the project.

“We are grateful for the optimism high-speed rail has brought to the community, but that brilliance is now tarnished,” Quintero said.

“We hope that a crystal clear line of communication is reestablished between the High-Speed Rail Authority and the city of Merced. We hope to rekindle the partnership with the authority, rather than feel like we don’t belong and (have) been abandoned.”

While other local officials were more subdued in their remarks toward the board, the feeling was palpable that Merced had not been treated in good faith.

The 31-mile segment that has not yet been cleared environmentally is the segment from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to Anaheim (think Disneyland). 

Most Remarkable Story This Summer? Bed, Bath And Beyond California -- WSJ -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48905CA.

From The WSJ:

The lede of this op-ed:

Bed Bath & Beyond is reemerging from bankruptcy with new storefronts and an updated business model, but Californians won’t see the retailer return to their local shopping centers.

More:

Bed Bath & Beyond, once a mainstay of American malls, filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and shuttered all stores, including nine in the Bay Area. Later that year, Overstock.com purchased the brand’s assets and rebranded as Beyond Inc. This month, the first revamped Bed Bath & Beyond Home store opened in Nashville, part of a plan to convert roughly 75 former Kirkland’s locations nationwide by 2026.

But then this:

A press release today from Beyond Inc. explains why the expansion will have a particular geographic limit. The release includes the following statement from Bed Bath & Beyond Executive Chairman Marcus Lemonis, who has become a familiar presence on Fox Business Network after earlier star turns on CNBC and ABC: 

We will not open or operate retail stores in California. This decision isn’t about politics — it’s about reality.

California has created one of the most overregulated, expensive, and risky environments for businesses in America.

It’s a system that makes it harder to employ people, harder to keep doors open, and harder to deliver value to customers. The result?

Higher taxes, higher fees, higher wages that many businesses simply cannot sustain, and endless regulations that strangle growth.

Even when the state announces a budget surplus, it’s built on the backs of ordinary citizens who are paying too much and businesses who are squeezed until they break… Californians will continue to get the products they love through BedBathandBeyond.com — but without the inflated costs created by an unsustainable model.

Governor Newsom responded on x, noting that Bed, Bath and Beyond had re-opened its first store and wishing the chain good luck in opening a second store.

That's the governor of California.

Much more at the link.

So far, 128 comments at the article. Most support Newsom. Cognitive dissonance. I'm sure the same enjoy high gasoline prices. I have no dog in either fight.

Speaking of which, I wonder how the In 'N Out family move to Nashville, TN, is going?

Meanwhile, we now have a proverbial circular firing squad. Posted by The Los Angeles Times just two hours ago, it's now being reported that the Democrats in the California House are investigating California's high-speed rail project, investigating whether the California high-speed rail authority knowingly misrepresented ridership projections.

This tells me one thing: the California bullet train will be the mid-term political issue with regard to California state spending.

The California Bullet Train -- July 29, 2025

Locator: 48714TRAIN.

Just how expensive is the California bullet train: link here.

• every resident in Los Angeles and San Francisco could take 200 round trip flights between these two cities for the $135 billion that the Bullet Train is now projected to cost. Will likely be more.

California Bullet Train -- Update -- Thirty-Seven Days And Counting -- June 4, 2025

Locator: 48685BULLETTRAIN.

Updates

July 17, 2025: Trump won't further fund the California bullet train; at risk, $4 billion. Will end up in court, but the writing is on the wall.

Original Post

The link to this story is everywhere:

The Federal Railroad Administration’s Compliance Review Report, which includes a letter addressed to California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri, listed nine “broken promises” where the project allegedly breached terms outlined in its federal grants, including missed deadlines, funding gaps and a lack of adequate time and money to complete the project as promised.

This was not a partisan report. It was a review/report by the Federal Railroad Administration, a report that was begun and completed under the Biden and Newsom administrations. The report listed nine "broken promises" by the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

In addition, the report says that the project has run out of time and has run out of money -- with or with federal aid -- to meet the 2033 deadline.

US Sec of Treasury has given the CEO of the CHSRA thirty-seven (37) days to respond. Pending that response, $4 billion in federal money is being held in escrow. There is a way to "thread this needle" but politically Trump is not (yet) so inclined.

The CHSRA said the project is mostly funded by state money -- which suggests to me -- the state does not need federal money to complete the project. That money would simply be "nice to have." 

If today is Day 0 and tomorrow is Day 1, then  Day 37 should be ... 26 + 11 -- COB, Friday, July 11, 2025?

Everyone agrees that there's no way, as it stands now, that the CHSRA has found a way forward to meet their first deadline of 2033 -- almost another decade of politics and spending more money.

The response by the CHSRA reminds me of the response by the Biden apologists when anyone suggested the 46th president was struggling with significant mental decline. Deny, deny, deny.

California Bullet Train -- Update -- May 13, 2025

Locator: 48621TRAIN.

Updates

May 22, 2025: nothing new here. Updated numbers. That's about it. Link here. 

I believe the last estimate just a few months ago, was another $7 billion would be needed by next summer; now it's estimated that another $10.2 billion may be needed by next summer in order to continue funding the project, and there might be a $400 million cost reduction. New estimate is on the higher range and is largely due to inflation. 

Reminder: California's current budget is as much as $12 billion underwater (a deficit of $12 billion) so this new number for the bullet train, $10.2 billion, is unachievable under the present circumstances, unless the Federal government steps up to the plate. Next proposal: a $10-billion bond proposal for California taxpayers.

If the $10.2 billion goes forward, that will make the project more expensive than the entire project that was proposed decades ago. Th updated cost estimate for the Merced to Bakersfield corridor ranges form $34.9 billion to $38.5 billion. The initial proposal was $45 billion for the entire project form San Francisco to Los Angeles. 

In round numbers that $38.5 billion is $40 billion and no one would be surprised if that was eventually raised to $50 billion.

Original Post 

The important link.

From the linked article:

Of all the government-spending boondoggles in history, California’s bullet train may be the most costly ever. That’s not news. In 2015, it topped the Houston Chronicle‘s John Boyd’s list of America’s 20 biggest wastes of money ever at $68 billion. That was just a little over double the $33 billion California’s politicians promised it would cost when they asked voters to approve it in 2008.

Ten Years Later

The Associated Press‘ Sophie Austin reports “the project’s price tag now exceeds $100 billion, more than triple the initial estimate.” In her article, she describes how far along the project is and the current plans the CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Ian Choudri, has for moving it forward.

California’s construction is far from completion. Of the 119 miles (192 kilometers) of construction underway in the Central Valley, only a 22-mile (35-kilometer) stretch is ready for the track-laying phase, which isn’t set to start until next year.

Finishing the line in the Valley is just the first step. Next, the train has to extend north toward the San Francisco Bay Area and south toward Los Angeles. Choudri’s goal within the next 20 years is to build to Gilroy, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco. Under current public transit, it would then take at least one more train transfer to get into the city.

Southward, he envisions building to Palmdale, 37 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles. From there, it takes more than one hour to drive or two hours on an existing train line to reach Los Angeles.

In 2020, the population of Palmdale was 169,000, and the population of Gilroy was 58,000, who are no doubt excited they’ll be able to travel between the two cities on California’s high-speed rail as early as 2045. 

California Bullet Train Update -- Too Big To Fail -- Needs Another $7 By Next Summer -- April 28, 2025

Locator: 48539TRAIN.

Bullet train updates:

https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article304879886.html

https://www.kcra.com/article/california-high-speed-rail-project-needs-7-billion/64302207

 

Amid mounting uncertainties about its future, the new leader of the California High-Speed Rail Authority says the project is close to reaching a significant milestone: the first Central Valley tracks will be laid next year.

Ian Choudri, who became the authority’s CEO in August, said Tuesday at a Fresnoland panel that the long-delayed bullet train project is too far deep into construction to look backward. [In other words, "too big to fail."]

“We are purchasing rail materials this year, we are laying tracks next year,”

Choudri said. “I don’t see any point where we have to say, ‘Oh, we can’t do it.’”

Previously, he said, plans were to purchase rail materials — including tens of thousands of concrete rail ties, electric poles and ballast — in 2026 or 2027. But the faster timeline, Choudri said, is a result of a reevaluation of the project that the authority launched in October to save costs and tighten the construction schedule.

High Speed Rail In The Northeast -- Fastest Amtrak Train Average 66 MPH Boston To NYC -- By Car: 3:32 -- By Train: 3:35 -- NYT Is Now Drawing Fantasy Maps -- Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Locator: 48415PINOCCHIO.

LOL: Microsoft supports plan for high-speed train -- 250 mph -- to connect Portland (OR) - Seattle (WA) -- Vancouver (BC). Even if it's possible (and it's not), why?

What's more likely in 2050:

• a man on Mars?
• high-speed rail (250 mph) between Seattle, Washingon, and Portland, OR
• the two states can't even agree on an old-fashioned bridge across the Columbia River
  

High speed rail: link to NYT. 

• here's the headline --

• here's the map --

• here's the story --

• Fact: Oregon and Washington State can't even agree to fund a highly needed bridge across the Columbia River. There's no way we're ever going to see a bullet train in the Pacific Northwest.

**********************************
Acela: Fastest Amtrak In The US

Acela, fastest Amtrak train in the US, Boston to NYC:

• LOL:

• fact:

• narrative -- 66 mph, average speed, Boston to NYC:

• fact:

California -- March 27, 2025

Locator: 48383CALIFORNIA.

California:

Los Angeles is broke: link here.

The Bullet Train: an update. Victor Davis Hanson says the cost of the Bullet Train is now estimated to be $300 billion.

First question: where is all that money going? Link here.

 

Health insurance: Medicaid provides health insurance to more than 72 million Americans with limited incomes and funds long-term care for some seniors. In California, nearly 15 million people — more than a third of residents — are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the program. About two-thirds of funding for state Medicaid programs is federal.

Amazon Unveils Revamped Alexa -- February 27, 2025

Locator: 48434AMAZON. 

Alexa:

Link here.

If the story is accurate -- it's a bit confusing -- this is a $20/month benefit for Amazon Prime subscribers. Again.

***************************
California Bullet Train

Victor Davis Hanson, in his podcast that streamed on YouTube February 27, 2025, said that the California Bullet Train would eventually cost $300 billion, and has spent $20 billion today. Referenced the Tulare Lake (one of many links here) fiasco. "If you could build the Bullet Train" it would still not make enough money through ticket sales to maintain operations. The host questioned the veracity of that figure of $300 billion and VDH confirmed that was the number he was hearing: $300 billion.

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Pacific Palisades Fire

Things must not be going well. The Los Angeles mayor has just fired the lesbian fire chief. Having said that, I knew her days were numbered from the beginning.

California Bullet Train -- Update -- January 12, 2025

Locator: 44669CALI.

To put the Pacific Palisades financial loss in perspective: right now, the losses due to the fires may be about what the cost of the Bullet Train is currently said to be. 

Link here.

This past week, just hours before the fires began in southern California and mayor Bass was (soon?) on her way to Ghana, Africa, Governor Newsom was breaking ground on a new railyard for the Bullet Train. As Taylor Swift would say, "a lot going on at the moment." 

Near Shafter, CA:

Construction of a new railyard between Wasco and Shafter in Kern County will set the stage for the eventual construction of tracks and other operating systems for California’s planned high-speed rail project.

The site, called a railhead, is near the southernmost end of a 22-mile stretch of the future bullet-train route from the Tulare-Kern county line to Poplar Avenue near Shafter, northwest of Bakersfield. 

This got a lot of press, but in fact, it's nothing more than a staging area for material. Governor Newsom suggested that rail would start to be laid in a "couple of years." 

To put this all in perspective, the losses from the southern California fire were estimated to be in the $20-billion range in the first couple of days, but now estimates are as high as $150 billion.

The Bullet Train is apparently still a $100-billion short, according to other sources. 

So, as I see it, if California has enough money to pay for a bullet train way over budget, the state will have more than enough to cover the southern California fires.

“This damn thing is substantially permanent,” Newsom said of the overall Valley portion of construction from north of Madera to Shafter, the first stages of what is planned as an initial operating segment for the trains between Merced and Bakersfield.

“Finally, we’re at the point where we’re going to start laying down this track in the next couple years.”

On another note, the governor can say any budgetary deficits the state incurs over the next few years can be blamed on the fires. 

*********************************
The Small Screen Page

Link here.

One of our favorite series back in the day.

Bullet Train(s) -- An Update -- January 3, 2025

Locator: 44601BULLETTRAIN.

Just like "my favorite chart," I have "my favorite project."

The California Bullet Train.

The most recent update: link here. I've purposely left the internal links alone in case this article disappears.

The proposed San Francisco to Los Angeles line, managed since 1996 by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, has a checkered history. Estimated costs have ballooned from $33 billion in 2008 to up to nearly $128 billion in 2024. The authority’s 2008 business plan described a system carrying more than 90 million passengers across an 800-mile network annually by 2030; its latest 2024 business plan now projects 28.4 million riders along a 494-mile network by 2040 — if it can find the money to continue building. “We have some significant financial challenges that are ahead of us,” said Anthony Williams, a member of the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors and director of public policy for Amazon in California.

Delays, cost overruns and management issues came to the fore in a 2018 report from the California state auditor. It faulted the authority for over-reliance on consultants, poor contract management and high turnover among its contract managers. When Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, came into office in 2019, he said in his first state-of-the-state address, “The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long.” He backed away from the aspiration of linking San Francisco, LA, Sacramento and San Diego, committing only to a smaller project in the state’s Central Valley. That’s where construction is underway now, between Bakersfield and Merced, California.

“Historically, doing this kind of thing has never been easy,” said Williams. “We also had some challenges at the beginning about how to get it right.”

Meanwhile, the Brightline West high-speed rail, Las Vegas to the far north side of the LA metro area, is on schedule to be completed within the next three years or so. The best thing about this project: you can drink on your way to Las Vegas, and sober up on the way home.

Brightline West began construction in April. Its 218-mile line from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, California, about 42 miles east of Los Angeles Union Station, will mainly run in the median of Interstate 15, with intermediate stops in Victor Valley and Hesperia, California. At Rancho Cucamonga, it will connect with commuter railroad Metrolink for those continuing on to other Los Angeles-area destinations. Constructing the line along an existing transportation corridor eased the permitting process and allowed the federal environmental review to speed through. Brightline West aims to complete construction in 2028.

Meanwhile, the Dallas-to-Houston high speed rail is still being considered. Right now, that project looks like a solution to problem that doesn't exist.

The Bullet Train -- December 22, 2024

Locator: 44505BULLETTRAIN.

Before we do the "Bullet Train" stuff, here's a story I missed yesterday (or the day before, actually) and it's a huge story:

Now, back to the "Bullet Train" stuff.

This "AI stuff" is saving me a lot of time.  

Bullet Train Central is tracked here.

The most recent estimate to complete this project:

• March 15, 2024: $0.130 trillion -- new estimate for completed project.
  

Question: does Buttigieg and the DOT have any money left to fund the California bullet train.

Answer. Yes.

Link here. Date of the article: November 15, 2024.

At that time, Buttigieg and the DOT had $3.4 billion (?) to give away. 

Breitbart is reporting that California wants $0.5 billion of that $3.4 billion for the bullet train.

My hunch? California will get it. 

Does $0.5 billion = $500 million. I'm not good at math. Fact check me on that.

Wasn't the bullet train initially to cost less than $35 billion?

Whatever.

The current estimate: $100 billion.

$0.5 billion / $100 billion = 0.5% (needs to be fact checked).

***********************
The Book Page: Re-Posting

America's Red Shift: Now Who's On The Wrong Side Of History

Essay by Charles R. Kesler, editor of the Claremont Review of Books.

Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2024, p. 6.

Six-page essay on the Trump-Harris campaigns and outcome.

The essay leads up to Obama's famous "on the right side of history" speech in which he originally suggested that those on the right side of history will eventually win because it's the right side of history.

But, now, with the outcome of the 2024 presidential election he has changed his speech slightly. "The right side of history" is not a given to win out. For the "right side of history" to win out, "we must will it to win."

"The right side of history" is not a given. In fact, it may not even be the "right side of history."

His argument leads up to a very fun piece of writing, page 12:

Though he didn't use that demographic argument in his speech to the DNC in Chicago, Obama still looked forward confidently to building "a true Democratic majority." Someone ought to endow a prized and name it after Obama -- the Barack Obama Prize -- prize for being painfully out of touch with your own country. 

He (Obama) should receive the inaugural trophy. He could display it alongside the Nobel Prize he got in 2009 for bringing peace to the world. Trump and the MAGA Republicans are now in the process of assimilating working-class voters, including young black and Hispanics, supposedly elements that "true Democratic majority," into a new Trumpian movement that may form, in time, a new Republican majority party.

 

Consider Hispanic voters. Exit polls showed Trump winning about 55% of the Latino male vote. CNN reported a 42% swing toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. And it wasn't just en. Support for the Democrats among Latinas, according to CNN, dropped from a 44% advantage in 2016 to a 22-point advantage this year.

 

The Los Angeles Times interviewed some of Trump's Latino supporters. "Why am I for Trump?" asked Tomas Garcia, who supported him in 2016, 2020, and 2024. "Because I'm an American first of all." 

The70-year-old's great-grandparents emigrated from Mexico. "Hispanics are about the American dream, said Abraham Enriquez, 29, who was raised by the children of Mexican immigrant parents in west Texas.

"Trump being a billionaire from New York, with a beautiful family and a beautiful wife, as a young Hispanic man, that is the American dream, that is what you one day want to be like."

Michael Fienup, an economist who studies Hispanics, commented, "Latinos are hard-working, they're self -sufficient, they're entrepreneurial, they're patriotic, they're optimistic. Guess what? Those are fundamentally American characteristics."

California's Bullet Train Update -- The Valley -- Holy Mackerel -- Authority Still Needs To Buy 2,290 Parcels November 21, 2024

Locator: 44372BULLETTRAIN.

Tracked here.

Link here.

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Meanwhile, Texas -- Free College

Largest, best university system in the country: tuition now free for all Texas college students with family income less than $100,000.

Bullet Train Update -- California -- June 1, 2024

Locator: 48020TRAIN.

Link here.

From the link: it's all been approved. Was there ever any doubt?

Since the earliest plans for the California High-Speed Rail Project, the segment connecting the Central Valley to Los Angeles has been fraught with controversy and technical conundrums. Political pressure and other concerns ultimately pushed the route away from the Grapevine and over the Tehachapis to the Antelope Valley, where it is planned to run along the State Route 14 corridor into the San Fernando Valley.

A final environmental review for a critical 38-mile leg from Palmdale to Burbank was released Friday. If approved by the authority’s board of directors next month, the entire route between Los Angeles and San Francisco would be environmentally cleared for construction.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors is expected to make a decision in late June on whether to accept the document, which includes several possible variations of the route with consideration to concerns about cost, aesthetics and environmental impacts raised by community members over the past two years.

California's Central Valley Bullet Train Update -- May 26, 2024

Locator: 47181THECOMICPAGE.

• tag: bullet train, Tulare Lakebed, Corcoran,

Updates:

Link here. May 5, 2024, so, it's a fairly recent update.

At the link, some great photos and narrative:

The California High Speed Rail Authority shared an update on the Fresno River Viaduct in Madera County last week, proudly saying it was one of the 'first completed high-speed rail structures.'

The tweet did not get the reaction officials were hoping for with Elon Musk and Dogecoin creator Billy Markus piling in to mock the project.

The Viaduct has taken nine years to build and has cost taxpayers $11 billion as part of the state's long-delayed, bullet-train plan attempting to link San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Commenting on photos showing the bridge stopping at only 1,600ft long with either end floating unconnected in the air, Markus tweeted: 'This is the most remarkable human achievement ever.'

Sharing the rail authority's tweet he added: '1600 feet of high speed rail after 9 years and 11 billion dollars it takes about 5 minutes to walk 1600 feet so a high speed rail for that is a really big deal.'

He added: 'Wow so impressive, can’t wait until year 2400 for this to finish for 700 quadrillion dollars.'

Musk then chimed in, adding a crying face emoji.

The high speed railway project has been beset by delays and setbacks. So far $11billion of taxpayer money has been sunk into the scheme which aims to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. The figure includes work on controversial Fresno bridge and a section which runs from Bakersfield to Merced, which is about 80 miles from the Bay Area.

It will take an estimated $100billion more to finish the project and link San Francisco to Los Angeles with many calling for the project to be scrapped.

 The floating viaduct:

What's really cool about this: the disconnect between engineer thinking and banking CEO thinking:

• engineers could / couldn't care less about the cost; it's the engineering feat that marvels
• the banking CEO: are you kidding me? $11 billion for a bridge to nowhere.

See Wes Anderson's Asteroid City for more on this.

*********************************
Re-Posting

One of my better posts on the Bullet Train, California

Locator: 44699CA.

Locator: 44461BT. 

Updates

May 20, 2023: California to open relief valves to mitigate Lake Tulare flooding. 

The intertie functions like a gated alley connecting two much larger streets. On one side lies a stretch of the Kern River called the Buena Vista Channel, and on the other is the California Aqueduct, a simple name for a complex system of tunnels and pipelines that transports water from Northern California and the Sierra to the state's arid central and southern expanses.

Original Post

I don't know if folks remember this, but if you do, hold that thought. This was the huge Red River flood of Grand Forks back in 1997. Photo link here.

Fast forward.

Out in California, The Los Angeles Times reports on something similar facing Tulare, California, central valley, northwest of Los Angeles, northwest of Bakersfield. Tulare Lake is back. See also the blog of June 24, 2017.

This story may or may not be behind a paywall. I was able to access it without difficulty.

The flooding has only recently begun and is expected to last at least two more years, assuming I read the article correctly, which seems correct because the state is working on a plan to raise the existing earth dikes another 3.5 feet.

What the flood plain looks like on the map:

Why this story is of interest? Not so much what was reported but what was not reported.

The California Bullet Train.

Link here.

The map from the state of California:

Going back to the earlier map:

Note: this is the easy part of the bullet-train-rail -- flat. No tunnels. No mountains. No major river crossings. Just absolutely flat.

And flooded.

The good news: they can put 12-foot dikes on either side / both sides of the rails.

The bullet train is tracked (no pun intended) here.

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Current Cost / Funding Status

Link here.