“They would have been better off creating very large cigarette boats and built docks along the coastline. People can board in San Diego and ride up to San Francisco in a couple of hours. Being that it is not off shore people wouldn’t have to worry about big waves.”
The driving distance is 500 miles. It would take 10 hours or longer by sea.
Too bad we don't have flying machines that could cover that distance in an hour. That would make the whole train thing superfluous.
Rounding Point Conception might add a few hours to that! (It wasn’t in a cigarette boat, but a tuna boat and it took a couple of days).