Proposed ‘High-Speed’ Train Would Bring Passengers From NYC To L.A. In Three Days

A new high-speed train proposal hopes to link Los Angeles and New York City in time for the FIFA World Cup and celebrations for the United States’ 250th birthday next year.

AmeriStarRail, based in Delaware, proposed the plan to Amtrak, as well as to President Donald Trump, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Congress, according to Newsweek.

The train, called the “Transcontinental Chief,” would be funded entirely by private investors, not taxpayers, and would transport both passengers and commercial trucks.

“The Transcontinental Chief will be a great opportunity for Amtrak to team up with the private sector to confront the challenges of its money-losing long-distance trains and create opportunities to usher in a profitable Golden Age of rail travel for passengers and truckers, with the ingenuity of free enterprise, as we celebrate our great nation’s 250th birthday next year,” AmeriStarRail Chief Operating Officer Scott Spencer said in a letter to Amtrak.

The train would rely on existing infrastructure from host railroads and include stops at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Chicago, and the Grand Canyon. Amtrak has not yet responded to the proposal, Newsweek reported.

The plan contrasts with another high-speed train project in California, which risks losing its federal funding after failing to make progress for more than a decade, The Daily Wire previously reported.

Despite receiving about $4 billion for the 800-mile project since 2010, the state has “not laid a single high-speed track,” according to the Trump administration.

When voters approved the project in 2008, the estimated cost was $33 billion. Now, the projected cost has swelled to $128 billion, leaving California about $100 billion short, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The state is currently trying to build the first segment of the project, a 119-mile track connecting Merced to Bakersfield. The estimated completion date is 2033, but the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) says the state doesn’t have “a viable path” to finishing the first phase by the deadline.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who promoted the train when he was mayor of San Francisco, said in May that workers have begun the first phase of the project, “laying the tracks to get to where they start to lay the tracks.”

“It’s a technical way of actually doing the development in phases, so real tracks are being laid, and the formal track that will be the first-in-the-nation high-speed rail track is about to take place,” Newsom said.

A California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) spokesperson told The Daily Wire in June that the agency remains “firmly committed” to the project.

In its response to the FRA, the CHSRA disputed the findings and requested that the agency withdraw the proposed termination of federal funds.

“The Authority’s work has already reshaped the Central Valley,” the CHSRA’s response said. “We have built many of the viaducts, overpasses, and underpasses on which the first 119 miles of high-speed rail track will run.”