>My motivation here is to highlight the nefarious ability of powerful entities like the SP and the Tejon Ranch to corrupt public planning involving billions of dollars to favor their special interests.

For one thing, you're at least 100 years behind the times. The SP's "control of things" extended between the 1860s and about 1910. Ever read the Octopus by Frank Norris? If you do, look at the original publication date.

Ever hear of "lobbyists"? They're still around, buying and selling Congressmen, Senators, legislators etc. Why do you thing the Trumpster has cut-off the HSR funds, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, etc.? His puppetmasters, the lobbyists, told him to.

That the SP would ever use BARTD tracks, any of them, for its own purposes is, as the Brits would say, "right out there". Besides, if BARTD could have taken over the duties of the commute service on the Peninsula, on its own separate railroad, the SP would have been quite pleased to have it do so. The thing which brought this to a halt was San Mateo County's backing out of BARTD.