Southern Pacific conquered Tehachapi Pass in 1876; can Hi-Speed Rail do it?

Engineers designing the California High-Speed Rail (HSR) must move mountains – and people, houses, roads, orchards and maybe a corral or two.

Farmers and residents at ground zero in the first segment of the first HSR track to be under construction – a 29-mile stretch from Madera to Fresno – are faced with the reality that they are expected to get out of the way. In spite of funding difficulties and vociferous opposition to the project, it appears the train has left the depot.

The next construction package to be awarded will be for the Fresno to Bakersfield segment.

With its mountains and steep grades, the Tehachapi Pass section of the Bakersfield-Palmdale segment is the most challenging of the entire California High-Speed Rail line. In the original California High-Speed Rail Authority budget, the Bakersfield-Palmdale segment seems an afterthought, with state and federal sources allotting zero funds for design and property acquisition – the only part of the route to be so bereft. After making preliminary studies and proposals for routes, the Authority has had minimal recent contact with the three main local entities through whose property the HSR likely will run.

"We haven't heard anything for quite a while," Tehachapi City Manager Greg Garrett said. In its present configuration, the rail line will cut through the hilly, undeveloped northern reaches of the city, just behind the new hospital.

"After they made numerous requests for access, we decided to meet with them," said Loop Ranch owner John Broome, Jr., whose family property runs for 10 or 12 miles along Hwy. 58 and would be the location for miles of the HSR. "We decided to meet with them more than a year ago."

Broome said they have not yet granted access to HSR representatives.

Lehigh Southwest Cement Co. has allowed access. The cement plant and quarry are directly in the path of the proposed HSR route.

"They have come and done initial biological and cultural surveys for CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act)," said Craig Mifflin, manager of environmental and public affairs for Lehigh. "They walked the property. We met with them. The route was changed two or three times."

The visit was about a year ago, Mifflin said.

The proposed alignment, east to west, he said, "comes out of the canyon... cuts across Proctor Lake bed, crosses Tehachapi Boulevard north to between the plant and the dump [Tehachapi Landfill]. It goes underground north of the [plant's] dome and cuts across between the quarry and the cemetery through the saddle there. A lot of it is underground."

Mifflin said the track would run "a couple of hundred yards" from the quarry.

"It would have a significant impact on the plant operations. It is too close for safety and fly rock."

Lehigh, owned by the German Heidelberg Group, which has other properties impacted by the HSR, has another problem.

"We've mapped out all the rock available for 50 years," Mifflin said. "The area we plan to mine in the future, this would go through."

Mifflin said the Heidelberg Group has a land management group in Fresno that is dealing with the HSR.

"We are still looking at a number of options in the Bakersfield to Palmdale segment," Lisa Alley, spokesperson for the Authority, said. Any decision is "several months away," she said.

"It's a lengthy process. We are not expecting environmental clearance [for the segment] until 2018-2019."

"The process is still several years in the making for the Bakersfield to Palmdale segment," Alley said.

"The Merced to San Fernando Valley HSR [which includes Bakersfield-Palmdale] will be operational by 2022."

John Broome has his doubts.

Given the cost of the project, he said, "It seems like it's highly improbable that it's going to come to pass."

James E. Moore, who is professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, is an expert witness in opposition to the project.

With inexpensive forms of transportation in California, Moore calls the project "an atrocious waste."

"I don't think it will ever recover its costs," he said.

Will the project be completed?

"I hope not," Moore said. "But I'm afraid it will be built."