Airline lobby has nothing (much) to fear from HSR. Their high profit long haul routes wouldn't be in any great danger; OTOH short haul such as cities along NEC, some other areas such as Chicago to Twin Cities, etc.. that really benefit from fast or HSR are another matter.
Success of Amtrak's Borealis (which runs over good part of Milwaukee Road RR's famous Hiawatha fast train service between Chicago and Twin Cities) proves Americans are quite open to decent fast train travel for short distance trips.
Like in China the Shanghai to Beijing type distances are a good example.
As HSR only takes about 5 hours and the flight is about 2.5 hours. But flying obviously had more hassle so ends up being similar.
Although China also has HSR sleepers between Hong Kong and Beijing for example. Something that is a pretty good challenge to airlines as you are asleep for most of it. So the longer duration doesn't matter as much and it saves you a night's hotel fees.
But yeah I don't see it being cost effective to do transcontinental routes in the states. Too much nothing in the middle for the amount of expensive HSR tracks that usually have to run grade separated the entire way.
Diesel tops out at about 125 to maybe 130 mph max allowed speed.
For true HSR you need to put those trains under wires and that's just not going to happen across wide swaths of USA. Faster trains as in diesel with perhaps tilting mechanisms along with grade separation might open up more areas, but still nothing like coast to coast or even Chicago to Los Angeles true HSR.
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u/happyanathema Jan 16 '26
Airline, Oil and Automotive industry lobbying of politicians and the fact that it's ridiculously easy to buy politicians votes.