McIntyre told the board that he and development partners want to invest up to $1 billion to build maintenance facilities for the trains and the rail line on property just north of Madera, on the east side of Highway 99 between Avenue 18 1/2 and Avenue 20 1/2. The investment depends on that site being chosen by the authority, from a handful of competing sites up and down the Valley, to house a heavy maintenance station.

McIntyre, who was involved in deals to develop University of California at Merced and Children's Hospital Central California in Madera County, said his group estimates it would cost about $668 million to build a plant where heavy maintenance would be done on the high-speed trains. Another $330 million would be needed to build a command center for the train system as well as a maintenance-of-way station to care for a section of tracks in the Valley.

The group doesn't have money in the bank, but McIntyre said he believes that if their site is selected,the partnership could secure the needed financing based on the anticipated profitability of the train system.

"We finance it, we develop it, we construct it, and we lease it to the authority in a lease-purchase agreement in which (the authority) would own it after a certain period of time," he said. "We're confident that the operation can be very profitable and lease payments can be easily guaranteed."

Not everyone was pleased with the board's approval of the route.

"I feel today like I don't count," said RoseAnn Martinez, whose immigration-service office at the corner of G and Fresno streets in downtown Fresno would be dislocated by the high-speed railroad. "I think your engineers need to spend more time to see what families and businesses you're displacing. I just want each one of you to know that."

Valery Forestiere, whose family's Forestiere Underground Gardens on Shaw Avenue between Highway 99 and the Union Pacific Railroad line is a national- and state-recognized historic site, said she is unconvinced that there has been sufficient analysis of how noise and vibration from nearby high-speed trains might affect the property.

"My family does not believe, since we were not involved, that the correct processes were followed," she said. "If so, the board would not have reached this conclusion."

"It's impossible to say there's no adverse impact if the correct studies have been done," Forestiere added. "If they were done, please give us copies, because we were never contacted or involved. ... It's insulting that we weren't taken seriously."