You still need all those things for a high speed train. The only reason it’s a little less today is that almost nobody takes passenger rail.
Keep in mind these old downtown stations built in 1900 won’t be able to handle the kind of passenger counts that would “need” to be shifted from the airports, so don’t delude yourself into thinking you wouldn’t need big train stations built in the outskirts, crowded and irritating to get to, like we have with modern airports.
Your day trip thing sounds even more confusing. That itinerary that’s “near impossible” with fast flight becomes more impossible with trains that take 2-3x longer. Also, sleeper train tickets are incredibly expensive compared to coach, because of how much space they take up and the cost of upkeep for these little suites. They’re always going to be expensive, like the redeye flight on a lie-flat bed. So again, no different than what we have today, just much, much slower and less accessible to the masses.
But your high-speed train enables a lot of things that are not really feasible to do on an airplane. speed train enables a lot of things that are not really feasible to do on an airplane. You should be thinking about a train for things where I could drive my own car but it'd be a little bit annoying to spend an hour on the road.
I happened to be in Des Moines a few years ago and waiting for my airplane an announcement came on that the plane to Chicago was delayed. And I overheard someone near me say, why would you fly to Chicago? You can just drive. Realistically, if Chicago is your destination from Des Moines, depending on where you go, it is quite possible that you can drive your car and get there faster than flying. However, a high-speed train could likely get you there faster than the airplane. Chicago was of course a large city. There's a very big difference between I want to go into the loop versus my destination is an outer suburb. I would expect your high speed train makes two or even three stops in the city of Chicago plus, some stops in other cities that happen to be along the way.
Exactly all of this. HSR in the US makes a lot more sense if you look at it as a regional phenomenon. Atlanta<->Miami, DC<->NYC, NYC<->Chicago, Houston<->Dallas, Chicago<->Nashville. Those all fit the prescription of being around the same time as driving.
Miami<->Seattle is not going to fit neatly in HSR. The distance is too great. A realistic HSR network in the US will also involve changing trains in the midwest because there are too many pairs of big cities involved. Miami<->SF, Atlanta<->LA, DC<->SF, Philadelphia<->Phoenix, etc.
The other hindrance for HSR in the US is our family sizes. "It's about the same time to drive" is a solid argument for 1 traveler, it's less so for 4 travelers with 4 HSR tickets. Many people will keep driving shorter distances for this reason alone.
I have regularly taken two-day trips in the US because the cost of an airplane for 5 is much more than the cost of my car even including hotel rooms. Lately I've been taking Amtrak, which is a little bit cheaper, but it's still annoying enough that I would only do it because I hate driving.
It also helps the economics to realize that there are very few places in the US that anyone would go that not having a personal car is a reasonable thing and so you have to have the cost of a rental car to anything other than grabbing your own.
Tbh - once you somehow figure out who's going to pay for the massive amount of construction, and the land (I know the strips of farmland MIGHT be cheap but the last few dozen miles near each place everbody wants to go get very tricky) - I agree that these sub-400-mile trips are 1000x more competitive with flying, compared to the transcontinental ones. Yeah, I'd love to hop a HSR from Dallas to Houston, or Atlanta to Jacksonvile.
I just think a transcontinental HSR would not be a popular enough trip that we can responsibly include transcontinental passenger traffic in economic considerations to justify the build. In other words, if we can only afford the build in general if we can get like 60% of NY-LA, NY-SF, etc. traffic to switch to trains, then it's going to go bankrupt.
> That itinerary that’s “near impossible” with fast flight becomes more impossible with trains that take 2-3x longer.
No because you can actually sleep on the train and be well-rested. Even non sleeper seats are wider and can recline better on a train.
On planes your sleeping neighbor drools on your shoulder and your seat reclines 5 degrees if you're lucky. Sure technically you could take a redeye two nights in a row. If you don't mind being a zombie for the next 2 days.
You're comparing the most expensive train ticket, a sleeper car, with coach? That's insane. Sleeper car tickets are priced like the lie-flat plane seats. I experienced United's lie-flat premium transcontinental service almost a decade ago and it was a blissful night's sleep. Airlines have only improved the product since.
Compare a coach flight with the neighbor and the 5º reclined seat with coach train tickets with nearly the same setup. Maybe an extra inch of width.
Keep in mind these old downtown stations built in 1900 won’t be able to handle the kind of passenger counts that would “need” to be shifted from the airports, so don’t delude yourself into thinking you wouldn’t need big train stations built in the outskirts, crowded and irritating to get to, like we have with modern airports.
Your day trip thing sounds even more confusing. That itinerary that’s “near impossible” with fast flight becomes more impossible with trains that take 2-3x longer. Also, sleeper train tickets are incredibly expensive compared to coach, because of how much space they take up and the cost of upkeep for these little suites. They’re always going to be expensive, like the redeye flight on a lie-flat bed. So again, no different than what we have today, just much, much slower and less accessible to the masses.