Why are the folks at the California High Speed Rail Authority telling us we have to step into the technology of the 21st Century when they are really proposing using slightly upgraded 19th-century technology? I mean really, folks. The whole idea is just a train that goes on rails set really carefully so the train can go very fast.

It is still using a lot of energy to make it go fast. Energy that could be used someplace else, like maybe some desalinization plants for water.

The next time I read or hear the California High Speed Rail folks tell us how the train won’t be subsidized, I’m going to tell them all to return their paychecks because all of the money they are being paid is, well, a subsidy. That railroad isn’t making a dime yet, so it has to be subsidized.

We still don’t know where it is going to run. With luck, we may never know. I just cannot figure out why they want it to run from San Francisco to Gilroy and then toward Sacramento but not quite. It will then run south through the Central Valley on the east side to Bakersfield. From there it heads east through to Palmdale. After that? We just don’t know.

When the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific were building the first rails across the United States, they took a few liberties with routing in order to ensure they got the most land possible. See, the bonds they issued were based on the land they could eventually sell for farms, towns and cities. Is that what is happening here in California nearly 150 years later?

A message from the Santa Clarita city government.

If it must be built, why does it have to take the most convoluted route? Can’t it follow the existing coastal route with a few modifications? Or as I’ve stated before, just run alongside the Interstate 5 right-of-way?

I would also like to have the bidding process looked into. I hear the husband of our senator in Washington is the prime contractor. Is this true? Seems a bit of nepotism is running the railroad. Oh, not a federal project? Nay, my friends. Federal dollars are part of the funds being used. Funding voted on by the Senate. Just wondering how that works.

Many of my friends in Acton liked to identify with the Antelope Valley, since they do a lot of shopping there and many work there, too. Well, Acton and Agua Dulce are part of the Santa Clarita Valley. Our river, the Santa Clara, starts in Acton and is what made our valley. Now the railroad wants to cut through Acton, Agua Dulce and Sand Canyon in our valley. Palmdale just wants to have a high-speed rail station so that someday they can be on the high-speed rail line to Las Vegas. I’m impressed. Once again a scheme like the infamous Palmdale International Airport is raising its head. Will there be as much land speculation in Palmdale as before? Will it become another bust?

So Acton, Agua Dulce and Santa Clarita are joining together to keep the high-speed railway out of the Santa Clarita Valley. Our valley is joining together like it used to be when the first rails were joined between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 1876. The trains were slower then, but it was the same basic technology as is being planned now.

We needed those trains in 1876. California was nearly split into two states without those rails being joined. It was a fast way to get around our huge state. And now they want us to return to trains. To quote a line from my favorite Western movie, “Blazing Saddles,” when Madeleine Kahn is given flowers by Harvey Korman: “How ordinary.”

Trains like the “high-speed rail” being proposed are not new. In some countries, there are high-speed rail lines that have been in operation for nearly 40 years. Just because they are in Europe and Asia and Russia, too, does not make them a necessity for us. We aren’t keeping up with the neighbor next door. We don’t have to. Our transportation systems are working well. They just need a little fixing. Where do we get the money to do that? How about the money that is going to the railroad?

We have many problems here in the Golden State. Water is the biggest problem on our plate right now. Fixing the current roads is high on the list, too. The schools, from K through 12 and beyond, have many problems that could use more money to solve. How about reducing our jail and prison populations? Failing infrastructures in water, power and sewage that need funding. Just where do we get the money for those problems?

If I look at a list of problems facing our state, I don’t see “lack of high-speed rail” anyplace on our list. Not having such a rail system won’t lower our standard of living or make California a second-rate state. I cannot find any reason we need to have it. Can you?

The sales force trying to sell us this boondoggle are private contractors paid for by our money. They are subsidized. Well, we got sold a promise that we now know we don’t need to come true. We voted for it back then. Maybe we should get the petitions to get it stopped.

Where do I sign?

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley, where he serves as executive director of the SCV Historical Society. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived at DManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].