Unlike the California High Speed Rail Authority, I’ve got to wait for enough funding before I can start my journey, tracing the proposed route from the SCV to Sacramento.

I might follow the path to Gilroy, but driving a 40-foot-long motor home to San Francisco is not an option.

My goal is to see and write about the proposed railway and what is along the proposed route.

Just in case you missed it, the first track is scheduled to be constructed between the Central Valley towns of Borden and Corcoran. The first track will also pass through Fresno.

I’m really excited to go to Fresno. It is another city in California that has a funny name. Oxnard is another.

So from Santa Clarita, it is up Soledad Canyon until it meets the 14 Freeway in Acton. I’ll take the 14 over Vincent Hill and down into Palmdale.

Roughly following the proposed tracks, it is on to Highway 58, then west to Bakersfield.

The wonderful places of Tulare, Visalia, Merced, Modesto and Stockton are next. There is an RV place near Modesto where I’m going to stop.

Sacramento is next. I want to see the house full of blue that has that gold dome. Been a long time. In fact, the father of our current governor, Edmund G. Brown, was in that office the last time I was inside that building. Yes, I’m that old.

I want to visit the California Railway Museum while I’m in the capital city of our formerly great state. I do find it ironic that a political party that opposed the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s is all for building one now. Of course, back then they were also for Jim Crow laws and were forming the KKK, not to mention violence against Republicans, Jews and former slaves. But back to the subject. I wouldn’t want to let historical truth stop the conversation.

Here in California, we have a rich railroad history. It is estimated that it took a total of about 10,000 laborers – mostly Chinese immigrants – to blast and hack a railroad through the mountains and on to Utah where they linked with the Union Pacific.

Tehachapi Loop.

Our current High Speed Rail Authority says nearly 3,000,000 (yes, three million) folks will get employment from building and operating it. If each pair of outstretched arms linked hand-to-hand averages 5 feet, that means a total of about 2,841 miles. In other words, that is a lot of people. What if the printer made a mistake and it is only 300,000 people? I still can’t fathom that in the late 1860s, that way over the Sierra Mountains was blasted, graded, track laid and trains running in about three years. It was done with handcarts, black powder, hand drills in the hard rocks to place the powder for blasting. No modern machinery of any kind on the Central Pacific. Amazing that it didn’t take 3 million folks to do it.

I’ll be following that history as I head up from Newhall. At one time the tunnel to that lesser valley south of us (the San Fernando Valley) was the longest train tunnel in the world. And the tortuous path following the Santa Clara River along Soledad Canyon is historic, too. At the top of the hill called Vincent Hill or Vincent Gap, the route followed what is now the 14 to the 58 and on to Bakersfield.

There is one fantastic feature along the way. The Tehachapi Loop. It is a place where the tracks make a complete loop in order to reduce the grade (incline) and make it easier for the engines. I’ve been on an excursion train and watched the engines go over the top of the last few cars of the train.

This route has been done before. For high-speed rail, it could be done easier. You see, in 1875-76, the route had a minimum of tunneling, the long tunnel south of Newhall being the longest. So in order to avoid a very, very long tunnel under the San Gabriel Mountains between Palmdale and Los Angeles, the track took a westward turn through our valley. It added many miles, but it was the easiest route.

Today we have tunnel-boring machines that can drill and finish a tunnel quickly. The train is supposed to be electric-powered, so unlike the engines of 1876, folks will be able to breathe when in the tunnel.

Once I get to the Central Valley, does anyone know what sights I should see? Unlike the famous Route 66, there are no places to see dinosaurs, petrified trees and all of those other things. Any ideas welcome.

I may take a side trip to Yosemite, depending on the snow. I hope the snow is deep and prevents me from going there. We need the water. The whole state needs the water.

I can’t wait to get to Corcoran. It is the place the first section of railway begins. It is also the location of a state prison. The state prison that houses Charles Manson. What a way to start a railroad. It is an appropriate place. The whole railway scheme is as insane as that particular prisoner.

No interviewing for the position of navigator. Must be able argue with my basset hound, Mr. Renly, over the passenger seat. Send a message.

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. 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].