California Awards $3.5 Billion Contract to Lay the Nation's First True High-Speed Rail Track
A Kiewit-led consortium will electrify 119 miles of Central Valley guideway for trains running up to 220 mph, with tracklaying set to begin before year-end.
Editor's Note ·
- Clarification:
- Two of the five cited sources could not be captured to the provenance snapshot chain: the California High-Speed Rail Authority release (hsr.ca.gov) returned an Incapsula bot-block page and PBS News returned an AWS WAF challenge page, despite both responding with success HTTP status codes. The article's claims attributed to those two sources were independently verified during review: the Authority's headline, lead, the Ian Choudri CEO quote, and the 119-mile / 220-mph / structures / jobs figures are confirmed verbatim in the full-content Metro Magazine source, and the Trump quote, Authority spokesperson quote, $4 billion July 2025 federal withdrawal, dropped lawsuit, and 'more than $100 billion' total cost were confirmed against the live PBS article.
Overview
The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board on June 1, 2026 approved the launch of the initial phase of track and systems installation, clearing the way for crews to begin laying what the Authority calls the nation’s first true high-speed rail track, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. A consortium of Kiewit, Stacy Witbeck, and Herzog will carry out the work under a contract valued at $3.5 billion, as reported by Railway News.
The award marks a transition for a program that, after years of civil construction, has yet to lay a single mile of running track.
What We Know
The consortium will install electrified track, the overhead contact system, and train control and communications infrastructure across the Central Valley line, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Metro Magazine describes the scope as installing track, power, train control, and communications systems.
The work covers 119 miles of guideway currently under construction in the Central Valley, with the system designed for speeds up to 220 mph, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Railway News frames the same stretch as a 191-kilometer section and describes the contract as covering the design, installation, and commissioning of track, overhead contact systems, signalling, and telecommunications. IndexBox places the 191-kilometer alignment between Madera and Poplar Avenue, north of Bakersfield.
The contract follows a competitive procurement the Authority launched in November 2025, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The Authority says work begins later this year, a timeline echoed by IndexBox, which reports that tracklaying is anticipated to commence before the end of this year.
To compress the schedule, the Authority has been buying long-lead materials directly, including concrete sleepers, steel rails, and ballast, ahead of the consortium’s mobilization, according to Railway News.
The Authority frames the award as an inflection point for the program. “Bringing on board the team that will build California’s high-speed rail track and systems marks the moment this program transforms from major civil construction into delivering an operating railway,” said Ian Choudri, the Authority’s CEO, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
The broader build-out remains substantial. The Authority reports 60 fully completed major structures with another 30 underway, 171 miles under design and construction from Merced to Bakersfield, nearly 19,200 jobs created to date, and up to 1,700 workers at construction sites daily, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Funding and Political Context
The contract advances even as the project’s relationship with the federal government has frayed. The U.S. Transportation Department withdrew $4 billion in federal funding in July 2025, and California subsequently dropped its lawsuit seeking to reinstate that money, according to PBS News.
President Donald Trump cast the project as a failure, saying “The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” according to PBS News. A California High-Speed Rail Authority spokesperson responded that “This action reflects the State’s assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner,” according to PBS News.
The full system carries an estimated cost of more than $100 billion, according to PBS News.
What We Don’t Know
The Authority’s materials do not specify a completion date for the track and systems work or a firm start date for passenger service. The longer-term funding picture also remains unsettled following the loss of the federal grant, and the project’s path to connecting the Central Valley segment to San Francisco and Los Angeles depends on financing that has not been secured.