Construction of a new railyard between Wasco and Shafter in Kern County will set the stage for the eventual construction of tracks and other operating systems for California’s planned high-speed rail project.
The site, called a railhead, is near the southernmost end of a 22-mile stretch of the future bullet-train route from the Tulare-Kern county line to Poplar Avenue near Shafter, northwest of Bakersfield.
In the shadow of a newly built overpass along the rail route on Monday afternoon, California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri and Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed the start of work on the railhead as a milestone for the controversial rail project. The site will be the staging area along the existing BNSF Railway tracks in the southern San Joaquin Valley to receive the materials that will be used to lay down the steel rails for high-speed trains.
“This damn thing is substantially permanent,” Newsom said of the overall Valley portion of construction from north of Madera to Shafter, the first stages of what is planned as an initial operating segment for the trains between Merced and Bakersfield. “Finally, we’re at the point where we’re going to start laying down this track in the next couple years.”