Palmdale is way off the north-south route; if you look at the map you will see a monumental turn towards the east north of Burbank. LA-Palmdale is an intra-LA matter and needs something like a modern standard gauge OC version of BART.

The incontrovertible fact that the Tejon Ranch Co. is so resolutely opposed to CAHSR says something important and overlooked - the elite which really runs California is not interested in passenger rail and flies in its private jets. When was the last time Jerry or Pelosi or DiFi or Zuckerberg or Tim Cook rode a train? CAHSR is not really crucial to them - it is just a sop to the cronies.