I wouldn't, I've done both trips one via air and one via the acela and there is hourly service between DCA and LGA and even with dealing with the airport It still was quicker to take a flight depending on the time of day. Amtrak is consistently delayed and late, there always seem to be some kind of construction going on somewhere on the line

Yes. A HUGE factor is the hourly cost of the staff/crew. Airlines actually optimize cruise flight speed to account for the costs of the crew... to the point where the computer might plan a faster cruise speed if the crew is very senior (and has a higher hourly rate). A more junior crew on the same flight might get a slower speed assigned to save fuel.

A train on a 1000+ mile run is going to account for a lot more crew/staff man-hours than a jet.

It’s also largely a function of population density. The US has a population density of 36 people per km^2. France has a population of 118 per km^2. Italy is 217 and Germany’s 240.

You simply CANNOT offset that difference with mass transit of any kind. Passenger trains will NEVER be as cost effective in countries with a low population density as they would somewhere with a high population density even if they are cheaper to build there. Moreover, it is particularly sensitive to both the population and population density of the cities served. With a population of 10.25 million in the greater metropolitan area and a population density of 21,500 per square kilometer, Paris France is a near ideal terminus for high speed rail. By comparison, the greater Washington DC area has a population of six million people but a population density of only 419 per square kilometer. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Which makes California’s High speed rail route between Merced (pop. 83,000) and Bakersfield (pop. 380,000) particularly stupid.

A train on 1000+ mile run doesn't make any sense. It is most efficient on 200 to 400 mile runs between highly populated city pairs.

I completely agree with you, we have to think about the future. In a near future, if not already, roads will be saturated -the air too-, making travel unpleasant and inefficient. We also have to think about pollution.
US politicians sooner or later will have to start thinking about the HSR.

If you think road and air travel is, or is approaching, unpleasant and inefficient, try an Amtrak trip. I can beat Amtrak in my car, in the Northeast easily.

GF

I'm not talking about Amtrak, that's not HSR. I mean real high speed rail, like in other countries.

Not according to certain politicians

I agree there's a hypothetical niche for it in the US in a few high-density areas. But good luck seizing all of that land and evicting people from their homes to make way for the infrastructure.. that is simply NOT happening in the US today, people are way too entitled and the system coddles them. It's a real biatch just to build something on land you ALREADY own... You'd need a really big paradigm shift (like a small nuclear war or a massive and sustained economic depression that would shame the Great Depression).

HSR ain’t happenin’, so Amtrak what you have and will have for a long time.

GF

A 1000+ mile route stops in dozens of cities along it's route though, creating dozens of possible city pairs to travel between or make connections to other services. Most pax don't travel from end to end but make shorter trips on the possible city pairs, many being 200-400 miles apart. Therefore one single seat will sell multiple times on one single run. This way, many smaller towns can be served too, where it is often very expensive to fly.

Of course, there are outliers where each route does have pax travel the whole distance or most of it; over 1000 miles. It depends on the route, of course, but on one of the New York to Miami runs, more than 20% of its riders go over 1000 miles. Of it's 33 station stops, the most popular city pair is between New York and Orlando.