page_title: History of rail transportation in California
section_title: High-speed rail
hierarchical_section_title: History of rail transportation in California / 21st century / High-speed rail
caption_attribution_description: English: Construction of California High-Speed Rail's San Joaquin River Viaduct over the San Joaquin River in July 2019
context_page_description: The establishment of America's transcontinental rail lines securely linked California to the rest of the country, and the far-reaching transportation systems that grew out of them during the century that followed contributed to the state's social, political, and economic development. When California was admitted as a state to the United States in 1850, and for nearly two decades thereafter, it was in many ways isolated, an outpost on the Pacific, until the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869.
  Passenger rail transportation declined in the early- and mid-20th Century with the rise of the state's car culture and road system. It has since undergone something of a renaissance, with the introduction of services such as Metrolink, Coaster, Caltrain, Amtrak California, and others. On November 4, 2008, the People of California passed Proposition 1a, which helped provide financing for a high-speed rail line.
context_section_description: The California High-Speed Rail Authority was created in 1996 by the state to implement an 800-mile (1,300 km) rail system. It would provide a TGV-style high-speed link between the state's four major metropolitan areas, and would allow travel between Los Angeles's Union Station and the San Francisco Transbay Transit Center in two and a half hours. In November 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A, a bond measure that allocated $9 billion to finance the project. In 2012, the California legislature and Governor Jerry Brown approved financing for an initial stage of construction for the project. The High Speed Rail Authority estimates that the initial stages will not be completed until 2022. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on January 6, 2015, and construction continues as of May 2019 despite financial and political difficulties. As part of Governor Gavin Newsom's 2019 State of the State address, he declared, "Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego." Cost increases have plagued the buildout, and in May 2019 the FRA cancelled a $928.6 million grant awarded to the project.
  As part of this effort, and due to rising ridership of its own, Caltrain undertook a project to electrify their service corridor between San Jose and San Francisco; high-speed rail services are expected to share this corridor once service is extended to the Bay Area. In August 2016, Caltrain awarded a contract to produce the trainsets needed for running on the electrified line, while an official groundbreaking ceremony was held on July 21, 2017 at Millbrae station. Project funding in the amount of $600 million comes from Proposition 1A funds that authorized the construction of high-speed rail.
  Altamont Corridor Express and San Joaquins services are planned to be enhanced and expanded as part of the state's general rail plan. CAHSR was originally to run over the Altamont Pass for its service route between the Central Valley and Silicon Valley, but these plans were later changed. New ACE lines are being built progressively to Ceres by 2023 and later to Merced. Additional services to Sacramento along a lesser-used rail line are also expected to be implemented in 2023, known as Valley Rail. Trains are planned to run to Merced and act as a feeder service in the northern section of the high speed rail service area.
caption: The San Joaquin River Viaduct under construction in 2019
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4032", "Image ImageLength": "3024", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2019:07:18 11:38:30", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "386", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5617", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024"}