CEO of California’s doomed $231B bullet train project suddenly quits
The boss of California’s doomed $231 billion bullet train project has thrown in the towel.
Ian Choudri, chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, resigned on Wednesday after a stint marred by scandal surrounding the never-ending and massively expensive project, according to CalMatters.
Choudri took a leave of absence in February after he allegedly intervened in a domestic dispute between his wife and his daughter. Police arrested him on suspicion of domestic violence, but the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute.
In another wacky turn, Choudri’s rail authority paid out $592,900 in “unallowable” expenses incurred by consultants, including rideshare trips to Tiki bars and an “escape room” and first-class flight upgrades, according to a bombshell Inspector General audit.
The rail authority’s chief said he is resigning to focus on “important personal and family priorities.”
“This has not been an easy decision, as leading the Authority has been one of the most meaningful and rewarding chapters of my professional life,” Choudri wrote in a resignation email obtained by Cal Matters.
The high-speed rail project, ambitious and the first of its kind in the United States, has encountered monster financial issues, delays, and controversy. The Trump administration pulled $4 billion in federal funding in July 2025, dubbing the project the “Train to Nowhere,” and citing its incompletion and expensive cost.
Currently, the project is set to run out of money in 2027 without ever having laid a single piece of track. The authority hopes to find enough private investment funds to fill the gap left by the lack of federal funding. The rail authority expects the project to cost between $126 billion and $231 billion.
Choudri’s compensation had been set at more than $534,000 this year, agency spokesperson Annie Parker told Cal Matters. He has been on the hot seat for the authority’s mishandling of the big transport project. The outlet reported Choudri had been facing disciplinary action, including possible termination for the authority’s misspent money.
Officials with the board overseeing the project had been set to discuss whether Choudri qualified for a potential $25,000 bonus based on his performance this year, Cal Matters reported.
It’s likely he would’ve been facing the end of the line as the rail authority’s chief soon anyway.
The politician favored to be California’s next governor, Democrat Xavier Becerra, said he would have canned Choudri if he were elected.
“There’s going to be a new sheriff in town,” Becerra told KCRA. “I need to gain the confidence of the public; I can’t gain it if I keep the same characters in place.”
Republican Steve Hilton, who hopes to snatch the governor’s mansion away from Democrats, said he would nix the project entirely and replace it with a “Government Failures National Monument.”
Hilton posted an AI-generated campaign ad in which he sought to contrast a sun-drenched, prosperous California under his governance with an alleged frozen, dystopian version of the Golden State under Becerra, blaming the latter’s hypothetical administration for soaring gas prices, struggling businesses and worsening conditions on Skid Row.
It’s unclear who will take Choudri’s place or when his last day will be. His resignation came during a two-day meeting of the board that oversees the project.
Choudri is resolute that he made a positive impact on the project since his hiring in August 2024.
“I took on a project facing significant challenges and serious questions about its prospects for success, and led its turnaround into a successful program,” he wrote.
Surely his signing-off boast would only be valid once the trains have been running long enough to prove the point!
The UK has something similar although shorter: its "HS".
So I was drawn to the comparisons and contrasts.
This too is far from complete although well under way, far over budget and schedule (apparently that's common around the world, not just in our nations) and has been scaled back to perhaps two-thirds of it intended length.
HS2 has become really, a white elephant as a high-speed service because London and Birmingham are barely 200 miles apart, and the planned HS2 trains will take only about 20 minutes less than the fastest existing trains.
Wht it will do though, is provide some relief on a network running on weekdays at maximum track capacity. (Not passenger capacity. It's below that as many trains become over-crowded).
So is/was there an "HS1".
Yes, although called "HST" (High-Speed Train), running the "Intercity 125" services, referring to the trains' maximum cruising speeds. They consist of a rake of coaches topped and tailed by a pair of "power cars", essentially matched locomotives, with a driving-cab at each end so they don't need turning and running-round each end of the journey.
They and their successors, both Diesel and electric, run on the existing railways, with the tracks and signals suitably up-rated to carry regular >100mph trains. The whole effect has been commercially very successful, raising passenger demand and extending commuter distances far from the cities.
But.... this, on top of a lot of ill-thought link-line closures by the 1960s, pro-road, Marples-Beeching Plan, has also led to heavy overcrowding in many areas, and one train breaking down can cause consiferable disruption.*
British Railways as it was in State ownership, embarked on a massive modernising in the 1950s-60s, including the rapid replacement of steam traction, but for some reason I think governmental, never completed electrification. So large parts of the network still rely on Diesel locomotives for freight, and Diesel multiple-unit (DMU) passenger-trains. The latter run up to about 70mph on the secondary lines.
Now, distances in the British Isles and America are obviously very different. London and Edinburgh are only about 400 miles apart, the fastest trains with only a couple of intermediate stops, taking about 4 hours for the trip.
Other countries seem to have operated somewhat similar policies.
So although America's huge distances and internal space is eminently suited to its own version of the French "TGV", using specially-built lines as California is attempting; I am surprised the USA has not followed suit generally.
Not only HS, but also electric traction on the existing main inter-city and most suburban lines, and its own versions of the Diesel-powered Intercity 125 and fast DMUs where the routes are not electrified.
Or has it? I think there is an 80mph electric-train service between New York and Boston.
It needs proper level-crossing gates though!
++++
*The major cause of train delays in Britain is not train or track failures, though. It is trespassers, accidents to people and suicides on the line.
@ArishMell the lack of support for trains, and buses, in the US, can likely be traced to yhe fossil fuel industry! The CEOs of those companies make much more money selling fuel to drivers!
@samueltyler2 And to the car manufacturers too. I understand there was a massive combined lobby in the USA after WW2, in favour of road transport.
A somewhat similar thing happened in the UK in the early-1960s, where the railways were suffering anyway externally from rapidly increasing road transport, and internally from the very inefficient ways they handled goods traffic, and a plethora of very uneconomical branch-lines. The damage though was wholesale closures of railway lines and stations for which Dr. Richard Beeching has taken all the blame since, but he was under the orders of the then-Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, who was basically corrupt. He held a very large block of shares in a major roads-building business.
I appreciate though that on a continent the size of North America, air travel will be a practical, and attractive, alternative to either road or rail for very long journeys.
