What a fiasco.
As a standalone point to point run of about 190-200 miles HSR between San Francisco and Anaheim is workable. With as many as 12 stops being planned between those cities the California HSR project becomes an expensive taxpayer funded joke.
With an average 16 or 17 miles between stops the only efficiency of HSR, long distance high-speed operation, is negated. Just as the train is building up to its top speed it will be slowing down for the next stop. As seen with the Acela in the Northeast Corridor, such use of HSR is a boon dongle. Far less expensive trains can do the same job.
On its best run of the average day Acela is about 20 minutes faster on the Boston to NY City route than the diesel electric Northeast Regional train. The Northeast Regional cost 1/3 the purchase price of Acela, has a lower daily operating cost than Acela, does not require special rails to operate on and does not require the costly overhead electric wire infrastructure that Acela requires.
Everyone in the HSR community likes to point at the Northeast Corridor and Acela as a success story. The facts are the primary reason the Northeast Corridor is the only profitable region for Amtrak is a strong customer base carried by the affordable to operate Northeast Regional train. Taken as a standalone product Acela is bleeding money.
