Thomas the Train on steroids — aka California’s high speed rail project — needs to burn through more cash.

On Tuesday, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) asked Uncle Sam for $450 million to connect Merced with 92,000 residents to Madera with 66,000 residents.

That’s roughly $55 million a mile for the eight mile distance.

The request is reasonable.

Without the money the starter “high speed” rail project that Gov. Gavin Newsom touted would be up and rolling sometime between 2030 and 2033 — which in CHSRA lingo means maybe by 2045 — would connect only Madera with Bakersfield.

What isn’t reasonable is the half-baked way Sacramento is going about what will end up being by far the most expensive public works initiative ever tackled in California.

Set aside arguments whether the original project envisioned to whisk riders from Los Angeles to San Francisco in two hours and 40 minutes makes sense as the marquee multi-generational California public works investment.

The problem is how Californians are being misled as Sacramento desperately works to keep the project on life support in terms of public buy in.

It is clear the original lie of high speed rail between LA and SF would be up and running by 2020 at a cost of $32 billion pedaled in 2008 to get voters to buy into approving a $9.9 billion bond was a whopper for the ages.

Today, the overall cost is pegged at $128 billion and counting.

As for a completion date, it’ll be close to the time some say large swaths of California will be under several feet of water.

Newsom several years ago sought to salvage support for the project by touting a plan to build a starter rail project to connect Merced and Bakersfield with 171 miles of track.

It would cost $30 billion, as we were told.

At the time, the spin was that segment would be up and running by 2033 at the latest.

Since then, the operative word to describe the segment is “operational.”

As such, it means only that. It will be operable but not move paid passengers.

Now we find out the $30 billion cost didn’t include actually reaching Merced.

And let’s be clear on this, the 119-mile section now under construction won’t reach Bakersfield. Instead, it only goes as far south as Wasco, a metropolis of 28,000.

Any bets on how much more the CHSRA will be asking to connect Wasco with Bakersfield?

Given they are scrounging for money as they build, none of this should be surprising.

But by misleading the public because, quite frankly, they have no way of knowing the actual cost of pitfalls that lie ahead such as tunneling through the Tehachapi Mountains, condemning property in the Los Angeles Basin, or tunneling through the San Andreas Fault, they are deliberately steering California away from a serious conversation about modifying the project.

Such conversations, at least on the northern end of system, need to focus on whether to ditch the “preferred” Pacheco Pass route to the Bay Area and revisit the project alternative that was rejected — the Altamont Pass.

It is clear the Pacheco Pass became the preferred project for political reasons.

To be honest, most “preferred projects” that undergo environmental scrutiny — even superficial initial assessments — are the preordained project.

Alternatives are studied only to make sure you can say you looked at all viable options to satisfy legal requirements.

But the Altamont Pass route to the Bay Area becomes more than viable if the original game plan is revisited.

With the state mandate to eliminate the sale of new vehicles in California that aren’t “zero emission”  going into effect in 2035, high speed rail becomes less about cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s because everyone driving EVs and such between San Francisco and Los Angeles would not be generating greenhouse gas emissions for high speed rail to eliminate.

Then there is the CHSRA’s own concession that likely ridership projections were way off hence the revised analysis there will be 25 percent less riders when the LA to SF trains are up and running.

Those two points more than justify revisiting high speed rail through the prism of it being first and foremost a mass transit project.

As such, the goal would to be serve the highest ridership in the most efficient manner.

Such an approach could significantly lower costs, serve more riders, and avoid costly duplication.

It would require saying the high speed concept would end at Merced.

From there, with double tracking that is already being planned between Merced and the Lathrop Wye, riders would switch to trains traveling at 90 mph as allowed by federal regulations.

Much more modest investments in a series of shorter tunnels crossing the Altamont Pass would accommodate 90 mph trains as opposed to 20 mph trains today.

More important, high speed rail trains would feed into a system where a true Northern California passenger train hub in Lathrop at virtually the center point of 18 million people.

It would allow direct connections with ACE to reach San Jose and Valley Link to reach BART and the points it serves throughout the Bay Area.

You can also head north to Sacramento and ultimately Chico.

There is no connection with Amtrak in Lathrop.

But that is not a bad thing.

That’s because in order to have strong ridership, high speed rail needs to cater to repeat riders instead of occasional riders.

That means commuters and those likely to travel from places like Madera to San Francisco of Sacramento every other month or so.

If the rail system operated more like an effective public bus system with frequent trains and was designed to reach the most people with smooth and efficient transfers, it would reduce congestion and allow for maximum movement by rails.

High speed rail as now envisioned won’t do much to relieve congestion whether by commuters or other frequent drivers who travel between points other than SF to LA.

Nor does it have an extensive reach on its own.

High speed rail, as originally envisioned, is an expensive dream that will have minimal impact on congestion.

What is being developed needs to make sense.

A lot has changed in 16 years.

The goal should be a passenger rail system that works for the most Californians as possible.

Instead, we are building a system that will work for a relatively few Californians at a tremendous cost that we will all be stuck with paying to get in place and operate.

It’s time to get working on the railroad in terms of a barely-out-of-the-gate adjustment.