Skift Take
American infrastructure for high-speed rail lags far behind that of other countries. Getting California's lines built may be a challenge for the U.S., but it's one worth taking on to avoid being left at the station.
Civil War veteran William Hood arrived at the mosquito-infested swamps near Bakersfield in 1874 to build a rail line that would soar through the Tehachapi Mountains, linking the Bay Area and Southern California for the first time.
Hood, Southern Pacific Railroad's chief assistant engineer, assembled 3,000 Chinese immigrants with picks, shovels and dynamite. They snaked the track up treacherous mountain ridges, twisted it back and forth around canyons and punched it through sheer rock in a series of 18 tunnels -- climbing 4,025 vertical feet along the way.
It's a feat no one has attempted to duplicate. Until now.
A plan as audacious in the 21st century as Hood's was in the 19th century is taking shape on the drawing boards of California's bullet train planners. The crossing of not only the Tehachapi Mountains but the San Gabriel Mountains is seizing the imagination of engineers who see it as the greatest design challenge of the $68-billion project.
"It is the project of the century," said UC Berkeley civil engineering professor Bill Ibbs, who has worked on other high-speed rail systems around the world.
The sheer scale and scope of the bullet train's push into Southern California, including traversing complex seismic hazards, would rival construction of the state's massive freeway system, water transport networks and its port complexes. It is likely to be viewed in future decades as an engineering marvel -- or a costly folly. If nothing else, it is ambitious.
The plan calls for bullet trains to shoot east from Bakersfield at 220 mph, climbing on
