New High Speed Rail System... Will Never Happen

Nope

So, here's the thing. The US could really use a high speed rail system. Hell, we could really just use a "rail system" which involved more than bumping your way from Boston to D.C. at 50mph. I really think late 19th century England had a faster rail network - it certainly had a much more capable rail network. 

But here is the problem: congress. The house, in particular. You see, each of those men and women represent a small little area on the map (or actually - because of the travesty which is US voting districts, more like a discontinuous set of blobs on the map), and each of them wants to make sure of one thing with a high speed rail network: it stops in their district. 

This is where physics comes in. People only like to be accelerated and decelerated at very low G loads. After a couple of G's people feel like they are on a roller coaster, and you would have more of a vomit comet than luxo liner. What does this have to do with congress? It means you can't have more than a few stops (and starts) on a high-speed rail line. Stop too often, and you spend your whole time speeding up or slowing down, and rarely taking advantage the "220mph" shown above. 

So yes - could we have the high speed rail system shown here? Sure. We just have to get rid of the House of Representatives first. Personally, I think it isn't a bad idea.