California should not emulate this high-speed rail system

News Snapshot:

The good news: California will almost certainly have a high-speed rail line someday. The bad news: it may look a lot like “Whoosh.” Whoosh is Indonesia’s new high-speed rail line, which opened last fall. Its existence is a breakthrough — Whoosh is the first bullet train in Southeast Asia. Similarly, California’s train could be the first truly high-speed service in North America. (Sorry, Amtrak’s Acela and Florida’s Brightline, you don’t surpass 150 miles per hour.) I rode Whoosh during a visit to Java in February. It was disappointing, in ways that preview how Californians are likely to feel about the...