But there are also other reasons for going into SFO: higher ticket prices at this station could be commanded to help pay for the tunnel, a few minutes would be cut off of HSR journey times between San Francisco and other parts of the state, there would be no need to add more tracks through the Millbrae Multi-Modal station or widen the right of way for a section of the CalTrain route. And, even though HSR would lose a transfer point with Caltrain, SamTrans and BART (well sort of on the BART issue), this isn’t that big of a loss because most of those passengers wouldn’t use HSR to arrive at this station because Caltrain will be cheaper and probably more convenient then HSR for these passengers. Besides, HSR will connect with these services (if done right) at the TBT, Diridon and possibly Redwood City or Palo Alto – SFO offers something more. SFO also has great bike lanes, bus services, shuttle service, taxi services, limo services, parking, car rental, and automobile drop off and pickup accessibility… going into SFO is not a loss for HSR.

The idea you mention at Millbrae is second-rate for all the points you bring up regarding airport codes and bookings. Additionally, it would require longer lay overs, a confusing transfer, and potentials for delay with the shuttle bus. And as far as baggage, level boarding is nice, but it’s not like having baggage transferred to a final destination. The California HSR system should NOT be second rate. The ideas I bring up have worked in other areas and should be used in California.

The path I drew goes through Terminal 2 which is currently not being used, except for a medical clinic (notice there are no planes there). It would be centrally located in the airport and the ideal location for a HSR station because at this location one could walk to their gate or take the existing AirTrain.

You might want to think long and hard about a solution that creates a secure area at Millbrae, connected directly to the gates via a frequent courtesy shuttle bus, i.e. cost covered by airport taxes and airport surcharge on HSR/Caltrain/BART/SamTrans tickets to Millbrae.

Note that IATA will permit a train station to use an airport’s three-letter code if and only if the connection between the station and gate is short and provided as a courtesy. Only then can airline booking systems offer e.g. NYC-SFO-XFR (Fresno HSR) as a two-leg journey. Otherwise, it would show up as a less desirable three-leg journey (NYC-SFO-XSF-XFR) or worse, the train segment would not show up at all because the system could not sell a ticket for the public transportation segment in-between.

Baggage service on board the trains isn’t really necessary since all stations will feature level boarding anyhow.