The slowest bullet train on Earth

A high-speed rail overpass being built alongside an orchard outside of Hanford, California. — Ian Bates/The New York Times

MARK Wasser, an eminent-domain lawyer from Sacramento, California, folded himself into the driver’s seat of his car and headed south.

He was on yet another 800km round trip through California’s Central Valley, tracing a route he knows too well – past farms, orchards and a patchwork of half-built structures meant to be part of America’s first bullet train.