Before I turn in for the night, a commentary on what high speed rail means here in relationship to California distances. (Calculated on rough crow-flies distances.) Today I did the rough equivalent of boarding a train in San Diego at 7:53 AM, taking a train to Fresno and changing for Stockton, arriving at 12:34 PM, then spending around five hours there before boarding a train for Chico at 5:33 PM and continuing on to Chico, arriving 6:44 PM. At one point, the display on the train announced that we were traveling at 285 km/h (around 175 MPH). And that's not the fastest of the trains -- our rail passes don't cover the fastest expresses.