People severely underestimate the gravity of the project a national high speed rail network is and it will never happen in the US in our lifetimes

I like rail, rail is great.

But you have people, who are mostly on the left, who argue for one without any understanding of how giant of an undertaking even the politics of getting a bill going for one. Theres pro rail people who just have 0 understanding of engineering projects that argue for it all the time.

Nobody accounts for where exactly it would be built and what exactly the routes would be, how much it would cost and where to budget it from, how many people it would need to build it, where the material sources would come from, how many employees it would need, how to deal with zoning and if towns/cities would want it, how many years it would take, and if it is built how many people would even use it.

This is something that might take a century to even get done if it can even be done.

Its never going to happen in our lifetimes, as nice as it would be to have today, the chances of it even becoming an actual plan and actual bill that can be voted on would still take about 20 years. And then another 20 or so years after that before ground is even broken on the project.