It is absolutely stranded and "train to nowhere" is a wonderful phrase I wish I'd thought of myself.
No one is going to take Amtrak's poor, slow trains to Merced, then ride high speed rail to Bakersfield, then get back on a slow Amtrak train to reach their final destination. Nor will they drive to those stranded stations just to connect by HSR. People will just drive (or fly!) the entire way.
What this author fails to point out is that America's Interstate Highway system is unique in the world and has led us to a road-based transportation system like no other. That's not a bad thing. Europe and Asia never had an interstate and trains make a lot more sense there.
The other factor is that airline travel is cheap and readily available in California. No one is going to goof around connecting through the "train to nowhere" when you could take a point-to-point trip on any airline between several airports. In LA, you've got LAX, Glendale, Burbank, and Ontario. In Silicon Valley, you've got SFO, Oakland, Sacramento, and SJC. If you look at the timetables for those connections, you could choose flights on 30 minute increments. If you took the "high speed" train to nowhere, who knows when the heck you'd arrive.
