Tonight is the night, and I cannot be there due to a prior commitment. I’m sure there will be plenty of meetings to come, but this one, the first one, is the one I really wanted to attend.

I cannot begin to tell you just how important this meeting is and that we need not just hundreds of folks to attend, but maybe thousands. Not all may fit into the space being used, but just being there is so important.

Yes, tonight is the gathering to stop the California High Speed Rail from going through our Santa Clarita Valley. It is that important that many folks attend.

I would love to hear about how the entire campus of Canyon High School is filled with folks wanting the high-speed rail to be moved and maybe even stopped. Wouldn’t it be great if this were the place and the time that Californians finally started to see the utter stupidity of “CHSR” and voted in protest by attending the meeting tonight at 7?

It is a perfect learning opportunity for your kids to see how a protest can be conducted. This is the type of gathering that is not unlike those that started our nation. Groups of folks wanting a voice they feel has been silenced by politicians who think they know better as to what we, the people, need.

I’ve written long and hard about the California High Speed Rail Boondoggle. It is now time we in the SCV take a stand and keep this old technology – disguised as new – out of our valley. I know folks from Acton, Agua Dulce and Sand Canyon will be there. I know some Newhall folks along with some from Saugus and Castaic will attend, too. Are you going to be one of them?

How can we even consider a high-speed railroad when we still have to board a bus and go to Bakersfield in order to ride a train on the inland route to Seattle? We don’t have Amtrak working, and Gov. Brown wants to have us try a high-speed system? Let’s get Amtrak fixed before we tackle an obviously more complicated rail system.

What good will this railroad do for our valley? Just like the present Amtrak system, we still have to travel quite a few miles to board the train. There will be no stations in the SCV for high-speed trains. Maybe we can ride the Metrolink to Palmdale or Burbank and get on at those locations. Have you taken Metrolink from, say, Newhall station to either destination? Real time saver for you, isn’t it? Not.

For some, the idea of going high-speed to San Francisco or other points north on a fast train is just what we need. Gee, they have it in other countries, so why not here? Well, guess what? We don’t have it here because we don’t want it here. How hard is that for politicians to understand?

When I was in second or third grade at Castaic Union Elementary School, we got to ride the train from Saugus Station to Los Angeles. We got off of the train and took a bus back home. It wasn’t a fast train ride, but it was the beginning of my love of all things railroad.

The California High Speed Rail system is not one I want to ride. Ever. Of course, I may not get the chance, since I will be nearly 79 by the time they estimate it to be completed. (I’m 65 now.) Another 14 years to go. Sounds like one huge construction boondoggle to me. It didn’t take that long to build the Panama Canal or the first transcontinental railroad.

Then there are the inevitable delays and cost overruns, equipment problems, and don’t forget, the system is designed around a train that had a design based on train designs from the 1940s. This is new and innovative? I think not and I know it is not.

Signage in Agua Dulce.

Let me get this straight: They, the California High Speed Rail Authority, want us to sell homes, churches and schools so they can be destroyed for an old-style railroad that will not be operational until the design is nearly 100 years old. About the only place it gets me is right in my wallet.

Come to think of it, by the time those trains start operating, if ever they do, they could be eligible for the trackside part of the museum at the SCV Historical Society’s Heritage Junction.

I think those bright blue and yellow engines and cars would be a great addition to the collection there. We could place it behind the old steam engine made in 1900. Wouldn’t that look great?

Folks might get confused by that train and the colors. You see, they are the same as the Navy aviation aircraft demonstration team, the Blue Angels. This old sailor hates the thought that a stupid train could have the same colors.

If it must be, let’s have “U.S. Navy” painted on the sides of the engines and launch it down the tracks. Let’s see if it can fly.

I’ll sell tickets.

In the meantime, please get to Canyon High School at 7 p.m. in the gym. I’ll try to make it after my other meeting – being held in the old Saugus Train Station.

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].