I agree with Crosspatch, and I’ll add that airlines abusive policies (anyone fly recently) and security restrictions make the train attractive. As a matter of national security, it’s wise for us to maintain a parallel train system to the over-burdened and fairly rickety itself flying system.
Even better, it will put lots of people to work, and soak up unemployment.
TGV-style trains yeah will require crushing Enviros, but we can cite AGW as the “need” to replace flying with lower CO2 train systems. This again gives us a parallel system, redundancy in case of something bad like 9/11.
As for the West, LA-OC to Vegas, and LA-OC to Salt Lake City would be a godsend with high speed trains. Both tourist destinations would and should help pay for the system. We could probably do a LA-OC to Vail/Aspen or Santa Fe. We do need to replace a lot of older infrastructure, Back East probably needs a lot of work. Tell the NIMBY’s Al Gore wants them to shut up.
