High Speed Rail vs. Air: California Edition!

High Speed Rail in the USA, and California High Speed Rail in particular, has had a rough go of it to this point. In a previous video, we acknowledged that even though connecting the Bay Area and Los Angeles makes sense from the standpoint of connecting large cities with high existing travel volumes (both by road and by air), the stance between the two metro areas, close to 400 miles, is towards the upper end of the range where high speed rail can be effective.
This video drills down into the details of an example trip between West Covina in the L.A. metropolitan area, and downtown San Francisco's Financial District, comparing current air travel options with potential future high speed rail service. Our hypothetical journeys take us through the Golden State's most notorious transportation hubs:

Los Angeles Union Station
San Francisco Transbay Terminal (my moniker for it...but Salesforce Transit Center if you must)
San Jose Diridon Station
Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC)
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Long Beach Airport (LGB)
Ontario International Airport (ONT)
John Wayne Airport (SNA)
Burbank Airport (BUR)
San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
Oakland International Airport (OAK)
and, of course, the El Monte Busway!

We dig into technical documentation from the California High Speed Rail Authority, the provisions of Proposition 1A, and some snazzy marketing materials from the Texas Central Railway ("America's Bullet Train"). And, of course, we finish by crowning a winner, evaluating both travel time (including transit connections and reliability) and the travel experience.