Business Insider, 10/9/22
A company hoping to help California with its high-speed rail built one in North Africa instead, saying the region was ‘less politically dysfunctional’
- A French state-owned railroad operator wanted to help California with its high-speed rail project.
- The company left after the state refused to listen to its recommendations, The New York Times reported.
- "SNCF was very angry," Dan McNamara, a project manager for SNCF, told the Times.
The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF), a French state-owned railroad operator, came to California in hopes of helping the state build a high-speed rail system from Los Angeles to San Francisco but left for North Africa in 2011 because the region was 'less politically dysfunctional' than the Golden State.
Within 7 years, they built a functioning high-speed rail system in Morocco, the New York Times reported.
California sought to have the first high-speed rail system in the country, but a new report from the Times showed political disagreement on the train's route slowed the ambitious project to a near halt — and raised construction costs by billions.
