Railroad to nowhere, with no riders.
Don’t kid yourself, bullet from LA/SD to SAN FRAN will have pleanty of riders. This is a 500 mile trip, if it pulls it off in 2.5 hours or less, it will have pleanty of passengers, provided the cost is at or below plane fare.
In air flight time for such a trip is about 1.5 hours. With additional overhead that flying takes in terms of time on the ground etc, you are looking at absolutely comparable travel times.
I don’t know if I agree with building a bullet train vs say a maglev, since bullet trains are already 40+ year old technology, but I have no doubt that high speed rail of some sort between those 2 points will be successful.
Of course had Cali not squandered countless wealth on insane social programs over the last 40 years, they could have built the damn thing themselves hundreds of times over.
I hear they are going to name this after Murtha.