National passenger rail isn't politically viable in the US because passenger rail is an absurd approach in most of the US.
The west and the midwest are most of the US.
So really, it's just your concern that is important to you. There's no "we" in it. Only what benefits you.
If you think intercity rail is a great idea, you don't need the US Senate. Just your own local and state officials to boldly pay for it with your own local and state taxes.
Draw the line with them, not with me.
The problem isn’t that some states won’t go along. It’s that you think of Hawaii as owing you fealty. New Mexico as obliged to pay tribute.
The problem is that geography and history make the US unsustainable over the long term. There’s no “Plymouth Rock therefore California.” No “Jamestown therefore Santa Fe.” No “Mount Vernon therefore Maui.”
> The problem is that geography and history make the US unsustainable over the long term.
Here we agree, which is why the US should build several dense intercity rail networks within its borders which will eventually serve as skeletons for its balkanized successor states :)
I suppose you consider federalism itself to be "war upon the locals". That ship sailed (or perhaps burned and sank) when the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution.
continual underlying appeal as the alternative to self control
If I could only just control my compulsive, pathological desire for decent-quality intercity rail travel in densely populated regions...
The problem isn’t that some states won’t go along. It’s that you think of Hawaii as owing you fealty. New Mexico as obliged to pay tribute.
By that logic, taxpayers in New York have been paying fealty to Texans in the Fort Worth area (via the Lockheed F-35 construction facility) for years.
The southernmost route traverses the mountains of the Basin and Range physiographic region.
From Salt Lake City heading west the first metro of more than one million is Sacramento a thousand kilometers away. In between is nothing but mountain ranges running north south. The little ones only nerds and locals can name. The big one, the Sierra Nevada, which most Americans will vaguely allude to as “the Rockies.” Despite the Rockies being five hundred kilometers to the east of Salt Lake City.
Even further on the other side of the Rockies sits Denver 800 km away. It's the closest million plus metro to the east of Salt Lake. Again across north south mountain ranges.
That’s 1800 km of mountain traversing rail line that only serves Salt Lake City. And it’s still almost that far - 1600 km - to Chicago...and a mere 1200 km to New York City.
The US is vast. Europeans don’t have practical rail from Helsinki to Athens. Or Berlin to Baku. Both significantly shorter than NYC to San Francisco.