Officials ceremonially kicked off construction a $12 billion high-speed rail line that's expected to carry passengers between Las Vegas and Southern California about two hours -- half the time of driving.

During a Monday event in Sin City, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others stood behind a table and hammered bright yellow spikes into gravel to mark the groundbreaking of the Brightline West project.

"I'm convinced that the first time Americans actually experience American high-speed rail on U.S. soil, there's going to be no going back and people are going to expect and demand it all across the country," Buttigieg told CNBC.

Brightline plans to lay 218 miles of track in the median of Interstate 15 between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, which is connected to downtown Los Angeles by the Metrolink commuter rail system.

The Brightline trains are expected to operate at speeds of up to 200 mph, which is about the same as high-speed trains in Europe and Japan.

It's also one-third faster than Amtrak's Acela trains, which run between Washington, D.C., and Boston, and are America's speediest.

Amtrak has said a new fleet of Acela trains to be introduced this year will feature a top speed of 160 mph, up from 150 mph.

The Brighline West project is slated to be finished by 2028, in time for that year's Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

President Joe Biden's $550 billion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will provide $3 billion in funding, with the remainder of the cost to be privately funded, according to the Brightline, which is owned by the Fortress Investment Group.

In 2018, Brightline began operating trains between Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida, marking the first new private intercity passenger rail service in the U.S. in a century.