FRESNO — Gov. Jerry Brown and state political leaders on Tuesday celebrated their perseverance over lawsuits and skeptical lawmakers and voters as they ceremonially started work in the Central Valley on the initial 29 miles of the nation’s first high-speed rail system.

Speaking to about 700 supporters of high-speed rail in a vacant lot in Fresno, the governor was cheered when he called critics — about 30 of whom protested outside the fenced-off festivities — “pusillanimous ... that means weak of spirit,” and said the state owed it to the future to think big and invest in projects like high-speed rail.

Brown noted that the State Water Project, BART and the Golden Gate Bridge all faced opposition in their time. “We need to be critiqued,” he said, “but we still need to build.”

But even as Brown and other political leaders underscored their determination at the site of the future Fresno station, there were reminders that many more obstacles lie in the path of the $68 billion plan to run trains as fast as 220 mph between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The biggest is how the California High Speed Rail Authority will come up with the tens of billions of dollars needed to take the tracks beyond the San Joaquin Valley.

Washington opposition

While high-speed rail backers made speeches and signed a symbolic section of rail in lieu of cutting a ribbon or wielding golden shovels, a new Congress whose Republican majority has vowed not to contribute more federal funding to California’s high-speed rail project took office in Washington. They include House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, whose district would be bisected by the fast rail line.

But Brown said he wasn’t concerned about those threats. “Don’t worry about it,” he said of the money. “We’re going to get it.”

Along with the financial challenge comes the need to complete the project without significant delays or massive cost overruns, and the question of whether state legislators have the political will to keep the project going when it runs into trouble.

The groundbreaking ceremony came more than six years after California voted to build a statewide high-speed rail system and two years later than planned. Since voters approved Proposition 1A, a $9 billion bond in 2008, cost estimates more than doubled to $68 billion, public support soured, particularly in the Central Valley, and critics attacked with a series of lawsuits.

Clearing the way

The High Speed Rail Authority has prevailed in those legal challenges over the past couple of years, enabling it to spend bond revenues and proceed with construction. Even though the ceremonial start of construction took place Tuesday, crews have been buying property and demolishing buildings to make way for high-speed tracks since last summer.

“This is ceremonial, but we’re really at a stage where we’re transitioning from planning and environmental work and getting legislation approved and doing design work and fighting lawsuits,” Dan Richard, chairman of the authority, said in an interview. “We’re really now moving to a point where continuous construction begins. This is where people are going to begin seeing physical manifestations of the project being built.”

The first big visible construction will be the Fresno River Bridge, beginning in the spring. Richard said the project won’t start at one end and extend to the other but instead take place in dozens of locations as the needed property is acquired. Land acquisition has lagged, he acknowledged, saying the pace is picking up. Of the approximately 500 properties needed for the initial 29-mile leg, just 100 have been obtained, which has slowed construction. For instance, the authority just purchased the final two pieces of land needed to build the bridge.

“Things are going to be blossoming,” he said. “Like the blades of grass coming up, and eventually you see you have a lawn.”

Next stop, Madera

The current construction is expected to be completed by 2018. It will clear a right-of-way, then build a stretch of high-speed track between Madera and Fresno, said Lisa Marie Alley, an authority spokeswoman.

The authority expects to award a contract this month for the next phase, which would take the tracks south to Bakersfield. Once that stretch is completed, with work overlapping the initial leg, the plan is to work on a connection to Palmdale, not from Bakersfield but from Burbank. Not only is that a critical stretch in connecting high-speed rail into the Los Angeles area, but officials believe it could operate as a profitable line even before the connection to the valley is completed.

By 2017 or 2018, the agency expects to have a 130-mile stretch through the valley that can be used as a test track for high-speed trains. And by 2022, it expects to be able to run trains from Merced to the Burbank Airport. Connections to San Francisco’s Transbay Transit Center and Los Angeles’ Union Station would be finished by 2029.

A message from critics

Critics, shut out of the reservation-only ceremony in downtown Fresno, waved signs with such messages as “Kids! You will pay $68 billion” and “HSR takes prime farm land.”

Jim Patterson, former Fresno mayor and a member of the Assembly Republican Caucus, lambasted the event and the project as he stood outside.

“We all support progress,” he said. “What we don’t support is financial foolishness and government deceit. That’s what we have here. This is a sham event. They don’t have the money to build this ... but this is what a one-party dictatorial government can do.”

But Brown scoffed at the naysayers and vowed continued perseverance, likening the effort, as only the governor can, to the great cathedrals of Europe.

“High-speed rail will take us from the past to the future, from the south to Fresno and north,” he said. “It is truly a California project bringing us together today.”