Airplanes work now and are paid for by their passengers. High speed trains would take immense investments and would have to be subsidized till the end of time. They'd only be competitive in travel times for under 200 mile trips, and that only because we don't impose the same security requirements on trains as planes, which is ludicrous given the have the exact same risks. After the first terrorist takes out a high speed train and kills hundreds of passengers and possibly hundreds of others (depending upon where the 200 MPH 500 Ton train tumbles through) there will be TSA security lines on train travel to match plane travel.

Lastly it's far easier to scale up with planes. You can't add more trains to one high speed track if another train is already on it heading towards you at high speed.

I don't know where you get that >200mi is infeasible.

shanghai - beijing HST is 819 miles/5 hours @ 220 mph with stops and carries 130 million a year and is insensitive to weather unlike planes.

its not easier to scale up planes. Have you tried building a new 777 capable airport in SF or LA lately?

Have you tried building a new rail line? Hint: adding a runway to an existing airport or building an entirely new airport, is simple, cheap and easy by comparison.

BOS has been trying complete a new runway for 40 years. No dice. you can see the half completed runway at 42.365685N, -70.998083W

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/42.3649312,-70.997063/North+...

and this couldn't be done even though no houses need to go. in comparison the big dig tunnels under downtown boston were constructed just fine (slow and over budget but done)

Inside the cities rail use existing Rights of Way or build tunnels. Much easier to build a tunnel under a city than demolish 10 sq mi of cbd.