Today is the last official day of Fall. Yes, you’ve made it through another season, and here comes Winter tomorrow.

Here in Southern California, we know it is Winter because our hills are starting to change from the familiar tan and brown to a verdant green with runny brown streaks falling down the slopes. Those, my friends, are small mudslides.

Are all y’all ready for Old Man Winter to visit your house? It is getting a bit cool out, but guess what? The weather-guessers are saying the start of this Winter is going to be a little warmer. Not warm enough to wear shorts and a T-shirt, but warm. (Midwest friends who might visit would want the shorts and T-shirts because they would complain about the 70-degree heat in the dead of Winter.)

It is official: Cemex isn’t going away any time soon. We can hope our new Congressman, Steve Knight, can get the bill introduced and through the House again. I hope the Senate will do the same. Maybe next time it will make it.

I’ve been conversing with folks up and down the proposed route of the California High Speed Rail Boondoggle. In just about every town that the representatives from the HSR Authority have visited to say how wonderful it is going to be, more folks have lined up in hopes it won’t be built.

Up in Acton, there is a T-shirt for sale that says, “STOP THE BULLET!!! BEFORE IT KILLS ACTON!!!” Between the two phrases is a picture of a bullet with a reflection of the high-speed train on it. It is a really cool T-shirt. I bought one.

It was designed by Tippi Hedren. Now, that is a lady who speaks her mind. In this case, she said it very well. I wonder if she would mind if we made a shirt that changes the last phrase to “Before It Kills Soledad And Sand Canyons!!!” or “Before It Kills the SCV!!!”

Similar stories are coming from along the entire proposed route. Home values dropping and towns to be changed forever. I just can’t see the reasoning for it any more, not that I could before. We don’t have to have trains like Europe and Japan. Our automobiles and airplanes work just fine. Let’s improve our roads and our water supply before anything else gets built.

Folks, this high-speed rail issue transcends most other problems we’ve had recently. Billboards? Small problem. High-speed rail? HUGE problem.

The folks from the California High Speed Rail Authority dropped by again and tried to sell their plan. Only they don’t really have a plan. How much will it cost to ride it from Los Angeles to San Francisco? We don’t get an answer but get told it will be competitive with the cost of driving or flying.

They again drag out that entirely outlandish figure of “3 million people” working on it. When asked what those three million will be doing, we get only silence.

How long will it really take to go between the two cities? Last time I asked that, it was estimated to take around six hours. I can almost drive my motor home towing my Jeep between the two places in that amount of time. Even with the price of diesel fuel, I’ll bet driving would be less expensive, and I don’t have to depend on the train to be on time. It seems they never are on time these days.

I do like the idea that one can get on a train to points north in Los Angeles and not be bused to Bakersfield. That is how Amtrak does it right now. Ride the bus to the train. Will HSR be the same?

No, this isn’t California High Speed Rail. It’s another flight of fancy: George Bennie’s Railplane from Scotland in the 1930s. He went bankrupt trying to get it off the ground, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Getting to Burbank or Palmdale to catch the HSR has its own set of problems. Take Metrolink to either place or drive, or whatever way you can think of. And when you get to San Francisco, how are you getting around town? It is easier there to use public transportation, which is something Los Angeles lacks.

I still want to know how the railway will not be subsidized by the state. If it can operate without subsidies, we had better tell all of the other high-speed railways how we are pulling off that little miracle. It will be the only line like it that is supposed to be non-subsidized. If you believe that, do you want to buy one of the big bridges in San Francisco Bay?

Our assemblyman, Scott Wilk, is going to introduce a bill to stop the train. I doubt it will get too far but it is a start. He wants all of us to vote on the train again. Knowing what we know now, I think that is a great idea. Let’s stop it before it costs us more money we don’t have.

I love trains. Heck, I just got a job that has my office in a train station. I can hear the Metrolink and the Union Pacific freight trains pass by all day long. I like to think I’ve put the mail bag on the catch pole so the train can pick it up without stopping. Maybe the high-speed railway can buy a mail train? It has to do something, since I’ve met few people who want to ride it.

Do you? Let me know.

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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].