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No chance any of them win unless Tutor Perini drags them into it..
I hope they use more of that high grade Chinese steel to build it with.. just like the new Bay Bridge..
I'm sure MoonBeam is on top of all those little details.
TooT TooT The MOONBEAM eXpress has left the station.. riding on hot air, not rails.
Still the train to nowhere.
If it ever gets built and the rolling stock is ever produced.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen any time soon.
Just what California needs - more debt.
Stealing our tax dollars and mortgaging our kids’ future while stimulating the Chinese economy on Brown’s boondoggle? Hope they bring their own water.
Chinese. Trains. CA.
I am pretty sure this was a great episode of KUNG FU with David Carradine.
Original estimate was 34 Billion, then 43 Billion. The Times article below puts it at 98.5B (and that was in 2011).
Gee. 68 billion dollars. Imagine what airlines serving those two cities will think about it. Targeted government funding that directly affects the business to which they’ve committed to serve - even with California’s added costs that might be involved?
If I was an airline corporate type I’d might be talking to them damn lawyers I have on staff to think about a lawsuit...you know...something about the Constitution and words like “equal protection [influence, preference, etc] under the law” and all that. Just a thought, you know.
Just a stab in the dark here, but if you asked a movie starlet whether shed rather have a ride on a bullet train with the rabble to go get recognized in SF versus a glamorous 1st Class plane ride and entourage accompanying, which one shed rather have. I wonder.
While we’re at it I still come back to that 68 billion dollar price tag. Gee. I wonder how many desalinization plants could be built for that. How much potable water could be produced? Would it help out on California’s dire water situation?
It certainly is a conundrum...
Who ever is willing to pay the politicians the biggest payback will be the winner.
Silly little people. That’s how it works.
Next question?
Can’t wait for those Chinese bullet trains to go over those Chinese bridges.
The payout from those liability lawsuits will add another $10 billion to the price tag.
If it hurts the unions Im all for it....
How about building a bullet aquaduct instead?
China also has an edge in whom California elects to statewide office.
All we can hope for is another governor or a financial crisis or a continuation of the drought or a peoples uprising.
They tried to stop this in the courts, with an excellent case. What is being delivered is not what was voted for in 2008, by a long shot. Yet, no judge would interfere.
We are being ruled against.
Isn’t there a new earthquake movie coming out?
This would be a WILLIE GREEN HAPPY CHOO CHOO thread!
1. Passenger rail in the USA ALWAYS loses money. It will never pay for itself
2. Just one good earthquake and the thing is ruined.
3. $68 BILLION!!!!
Only a liberal could think this was in any way a good idea.
I thought DAMNTRAK had it all figgered out.
California is in China, now?
Finaly. The megalopolis of Bakersfield can get commuters from Stockton in record time.
Folks aught to consider the “run off the rails” track record of Chinese trains.
WIll they supply the workers too? Probably.