-With the population of the East coast of the US and the amount of people that travel between Boston-NYC-Washington DC and the realatively short distances involved, fast train services should be just the thing.
-I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are actually some sort of speed train service like this. I thought there was none whatsoever!
-To compete with air travel, speed is of course essential, and the ticket price. With air travel finally having to pay the price for polluting the atmosphere competition between air and train are made more equal. Road traffic needs to be given this cost too.
-The investment of building, even upgrading, tracks, etc. for trains is of course huge and needs a very long perspective timewise. Building through densly populated areas, where trains can be economically viable, requires the participation and commitment of political bodies, from federal down to county and city levels. Expropriation would be necessary, but politically tough, for a true high speed link. I think it would be possible, though; if the federal interstate highways were possible to build, this project should be politically possible too.
-A similar project should work in California (like LA-SF).
-These projects should even be in the interest of the airline companies as they would free capacity at congested airports that are politically impossible (or at least hard) to expand further.

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