Agreed, I have friends who were traveling to and from Osaka and Tokyo frequently, and even though the current journey is around 3 hours vs 1 hr for the planes, they still preferred the train since you don't have to deal with security, nor go to a far-flung airport, nor have to be in cramped seats, nor ride a car at all, plus the environmental impact is far less [1].

[1] https://global.jr-central.co.jp/en/company/about_shinkansen/

Tokyo-Osaka is definitely a prime example where it makes a lot of sense. In an close-to-ideal system (like Japan) you could reach major cities 1200km apart (by rail) in 4h, 300kph average. For longer distances than that, the plane becomes indeed more reasonable. That means in US terms, you could do NYC - Chicago in roughly half a day by train, arriving relaxed and being able to work all the way through. If you've never taken a Shinkansen - please try it when you go to Japan. I've never experienced a smoother, more relaxing and more comfortable train than this.

The Chinese ones also feel similar, like they carbon copied the experience, and are (probably artificially) super cheap, so if you visit China sometime I’d recommend their high speed rail too! (The Shanghai airport maglev is impressive as well, though it doesn’t go to a particularly convenient location unfortunately as of when I last was there lol) I’ve taken pretty long high speed rides there, like Shenzhen to Shanghai and Xi’an to Beijing. Smooth experience and makes you wonder why the US is still not doing it...

Actually EDIT: the experience on the trains is similar, though the experience at the stations aren’t as good - they made them more like airports in China so there’s security checks, and boarding time at gates, so it’s somewhat less convenient; also the stations in Japan are part of the actual city while the stations in China are their own huge plazas disconnected from the actual city so the seamless transition from being in the city to getting on the train in Shinkansen is lost on Chinese rail. Nonetheless, an enjoyable system

because the us doesnt have a whole bunch of 5m+ pop cities within 2hours of each other...

there are a bunch within 4 hours however, counting by metro population. Boston - NYC - Philadelpha - DC is the most obvious candidate for a dedicated 300-350kph HSR, that investment should be a no-brainer. Further candidates: Chicago - Cleveland - Pittsburgh - Philadelphia, SF - San Jose - Bakersfield (for connectivity) - LA - San Diego, Dallas - Houston.

And if you look internationally, the Detroit-Windsor-Toronto-Montreal-Quebec City corridor is in a line with a number of intermediate cities

Because nearly every hsr route in the world loses money (eg CRC is 770 billion in debt) and the U.S. lacks enough high density city pairs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...)

Point of public transit isn’t to make money by fares, it’s to generate value at the destinations. I find it silly how people complain that American rail in general loses money, without addressing the fact that American rail systems make horrible use of the real estate of their stations - in most of Asia there’s huge mixed apartment, office, retail complexes on every station owned by the rail companies - and guess what it’s good for business when you build a human funnel into real estate you control, see how profitable JR/HK MTR are.

Even the Shinkansen lines had a lot of their debt forgiven when they transitioned from public to private assets

Lots of highways and airports and bus lines lose money/exist only because of government support. Being profitable as a sole concern doesn't account for any of the benefits from transportation options existing.

> Planes are only cheaper and faster when you don't care about land usage

The land that airports use is negligible compared to hsr tracks

HSR can be put underground. And since urban land is expensive, the rails are put underground. 90% of the Chuo Shinkansen will be underground[0]. The first section of the proposed Northeast Maglev in the US will be 75% underground[1]. The Hokkaido Shinkansen extension will be 76% tunnels (and only 7% at grade - the other 17% is bridges and viaducts) [2][3]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Maglev [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaido_Shinkansen [3] pdf warning https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/000215188.pdf

Rail tracks spend land in small amounts along their length. The terminals are pretty compact and can be largely put underground, so you can arrive to, or depart from, the very busy central areas of e.g. NYC, or London, or Paris, or Tokyo.

Planes do not require land under the flight path, but require colossal lumps of land for airports. These may be harder to allocate near a city, and you have to spend 40-60 minutes to get from an airport to the busy central areas of NYC or London.

This is a tradeoff, like most things in life.