High Speed Rail in the US

China is eating the USA's lunch when it comes to high speed rail. Five years ago the Chinese rail system was an unreliable dinosaur, now they have the most high speed rail of any country in the world.

I've heard many many excuses in the past regarding high speed rail, mainly "Japan and European countries are tiny compared to the United States, it just won't work here."

Well China is not tiny. In fact, the highly populated part of China (eastern half) corresponds nicely to the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and it is just as population-dense if not moreso!

Hopefully we start getting regional true high speed rail this decade.

I see three viable regional routes:

1) Northeast Corridor

Washington, DC - Baltimore - Philadelphia - New York City - New Haven - Boston

2) Texas T-bone

-------------------/Dallas/Ft Worth

Houston - Austin

-------------------\San Antonio

3) NorCal-SoCal-Vegas

Sacramento - Oakland/SF - Fresno - Bakersfield - Los Angeles - Vegas