For more than a decade, policymakers have debated, studied and scoped out a high-speed rail line that would whisk travelers between downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2 1/2 hours, the Los Angeles Times reports.

But, this year, the $40-billion dream of building a Japanese- or European-style bullet train through the Central Valley may find itself stopped in its tracks.

Even as state lawmakers visited France earlier this month for a glimpse of a passenger train as it set a world rail speed record of 357 mph, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was applying the brakes to California’s plan for a high-speed system.

The governor wants “to quietly kill this , and not go out and tell the people that high-speed rail isn’t in the future,” said state Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter). The lawmaker from the southern San Joaquin Valley is counting on the trains to help bring jobs to his district.

Read the full L.A. Times story

. (registration required)