The billions Washington clawed back from California’s high-speed rail project are finally being spent on trains that actually run. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Friday that the Federal Railroad Administration is putting $5.3 billion into rail projects across 23 states — roughly $2 billion of it money the Trump administration says it “saved” by canceling unspent funding for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s bullet train, according to the New York Post.
Duffy did not bother with diplomacy.
“It’s simple: Boondoggles are OUT and safety is IN,” he said. “Instead of wasting billions of dollars on Newsom’s failed high-speed rail boondoggle, we are fixing thousands of grade crossings – saving lives and improving communities across America.”
“We’re also making an unprecedented investment in Amtrak because President Trump and I are committed to making passenger rail in America great again,” Duffy added. “Gavin Newsom should take notes–this is how you properly invest hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”
The money is going to unglamorous things that keep people alive. The package will close more than 30 railroad crossings and upgrade more than 1,000 of them, put $2.05 billion toward 43 new Amtrak trainsets and $140 million into overhauling 41 locomotives. California recorded 46 grade-crossing fatalities in 2025; nationwide, crossings see more than 2,000 incidents and 200 deaths a year. The FRA said it aimed the money at the crossings with the worst safety records.
In other words: the same dollars that were buying viaducts in the Central Valley are now buying closed crossings and new equipment in 23 states. And California is not even shut out — the state is getting more than $200 million out of the $5.3 billion for its own safety and infrastructure work.
The reaction from Sacramento was less about the trains than about the man announcing them. “Duffy has a full-blown case of California Derangement Syndrome. He can’t get through a press release without thinking about how Gavin Newsom is building the transportation system of the future in the world’s fourth-largest economy,” a spokesperson told The Post, adding that it was “a little rich coming from a Secretary whose own signature achievements are attending ribbon cuttings and photo ops for projects funded by President Biden’s infrastructure law.”
The transportation system of the future is, at the moment, an 80-mile stretch of guideway and 58 major structures in the Central Valley. The Federal Railroad Administration terminated roughly $4 billion in unspent federal funding in July 2025 after determining the California High-Speed Rail Authority could not meet its obligations under its grant agreements. An inspector general has warned of a $9.5 billion funding gap and said the project could run out of cash by late 2027 without new borrowing. Service on the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment — 171 miles of the original San Francisco-to-Los Angeles promise — is now targeted for around 2033.
The FRA received 103 applications seeking more than $11.6 billion under the National Railroad Partnership Program. There was no shortage of places to put the money. There never was.
Source: nypost.com
