Speaking in his "state of the state" address, Gavin Newsom declares that California is laying tracks high-speed rail.
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A quite pleasant piece of reporting from Julie Watts at CBS News adds a new wrinkle to a thing The Federalist has been saying for a while: California's high-speed rail project is a political symbol plus a union giveaway, and no operational train system is coming anytime in the foreseeable future.

Completing a contract for actual trains, Watts writes, was a "key milestone" for a project that was approved in 2008 and began active construction in 2015. The failure to complete that step was an important signal, because federal grant requirements "required the rail authority to execute a trainset contract by Dec. 31, 2024. California missed that deadline."

The trains have to be ordered well ahead of the need for them, Watts, because they take time to build, and have to be available for testing well ahead of opening for passenger service. So the absence of a contract for trains strongly implies many more years of nothing much. You need trains to provide rail service, Gavin.

Doing nothing to cover an important piece of the project, state officials shrugged: "High-Speed Rail did not dispute that it missed the deadline. It did not provide an explanation for the delays to CBS California Investigates. Instead, the authority pointed to public records, none of which acknowledge the delay."

Going beyond the highly useful reporting from CBS News, take a moment to look at the procurement schedule on the website of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. "Tunnels," for example, are "TBD," with an expected completion date of "TBD." Solicitation of proposals for trains is listed as having begun in 2023, but also has an anticipated completion date of "TBD." And so on. "Maintenance Facility/Operations Control Center (OCC)," also TBD.

The trade press has seen this problem coming for a long time. Back in March, the publication Railway Supply warned that delays in contracting for trains would slow the whole project: "Until the Authority selects a manufacturer and issues a notice to proceed, the project cannot begin the train-specific engineering and prototype work required before passenger service."

It's hardly breaking news to say it, but $16 billion and counting has so far not bought Californians much of anything. At least no trains will be abandoned if they give up on the thing.