The California High-Speed Rail project officially began construction in 2015 with the groundbreaking ceremony in Fresno.
The project aims to connect Gilroy (79 miles south of San Francisco) to Palmdale (52 miles north of Los Angeles) by 2045, which is approximately 494 miles.
By contrast, construction of the U.S. transcontinental railroad, which involved connecting the eastern and western rail networks, took approximately six years, from 1863 to 1869. It involved two companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, laying track toward each other from Omaha, Nebraska, and Sacramento, California, respectively.