I have posted here before about riding Japan's Shinkansen from Tokyo to far North of the island. It was a fun trip, ~ equal in cost to flying, but certainly a longer journey. I did it that time for the experience, no regrets, but elected to fly on the return leg.
As Seahawk correctly points out HS rail is not a good fit for most of the U.S. Lots of $$ and legal battles to get land and infrastructure in place. Case in point the HSR effort in California. Originally proposed to go up the coast between LA and SF. That would make sense but impossible to get land access. So now it goes inland where there is no demand. Not sure if it will ever get finished. I have some pretty strong opinions on the entire matter but hopefully I kept this politics free enough to keep this thread in PPOT.
