> Trains are designed to serve city centers, and they do it well. Moving high speed train infrastructure to airports just for the sake of fliers would kill train experience for everyone else.

Would it?

If you ever visit Netherlands, take a note on how well Schiphol airport is integrated to the rail network. Its underground railway station, Luchthaven Schiphol, is just yet another station on the Rotterdam - Den Haag - Amsterdam main line, so for many trains (including the high-speed Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam line) the airport is just yet another stop on their route.

It is the best of both worlds.

I also think you underestimate how close schiphol is to most major cities. it is actually becoming a problem because the airport has little to no room for expansion. also, not all trains going the breda - Rotterdam - the Hague -Amsterdam route stop at schiphol airport.

also, the line is sort of infamous for constant delays on the schiphol part of the track.

What Toronto has done, with a dedicated express to the airport on the outskirts to the downtown hub rail station, is probably a sensible infrastructure pattern for many places. But it was a happy coincidence an early 20th century line ran most of the way there already. Otherwise, it would have meant laying a line through upper middle class suburbs. That's a showstopper, politically, whatever the merit might be; rail lines almost never get built in areas that are already heavily developed.