This proposal seems totally disconnected from reality.
First, Amtrak is not a competitive transportation option. It can be a fun novelty, but it's expensive and slow. Going from Portland to Oakland is supposed to take 18 hours but actually took 20 when I rode it. The same trip in a car takes 10 hours. By plane is 90 minutes. It gets worse: Amtrak cost me more than a plane ticket to the same destination.
Second, hundreds of billions of dollars doesn't get you much train in the US. California tried to build a high speed rail route between SF and LA. The estimated completion cost has skyrocketed to $100 billion and the completion date is 25 years after voters approved the project. The state has since given up on connecting LA & SF by high speed rail.
There is simply no future in which passenger rail competes with air travel in the US. Even in circumstances where the distances are not too great, and the political and bureaucratic hurdles are.
First, Amtrak is not a competitive transportation option. It can be a fun novelty, but it's expensive and slow. Going from Portland to Oakland is supposed to take 18 hours but actually took 20 when I rode it. The same trip in a car takes 10 hours. By plane is 90 minutes. It gets worse: Amtrak cost me more than a plane ticket to the same destination.
Second, hundreds of billions of dollars doesn't get you much train in the US. California tried to build a high speed rail route between SF and LA. The estimated completion cost has skyrocketed to $100 billion and the completion date is 25 years after voters approved the project. The state has since given up on connecting LA & SF by high speed rail.
There is simply no future in which passenger rail competes with air travel in the US. Even in circumstances where the distances are not too great, and the political and bureaucratic hurdles are.