From USA TODAY:
…Bullet trains are expensive to build and far from cheap to run. They won’t work everywhere. The sweet spot is somewhere between about 100 and 400 miles. Any less, and driving becomes more convenient. Too much more, and it makes increasing sense to fly.
Another must is a densely populated area with a lot of potential riders, such as the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, or California between Los Angeles and San Diego. In places like these, highways and airports are already saturated at peak travel times. With the U.S. population expected to grow by more than 100 million by 2050, mostly along the coasts, adding another way for people to get around seems like smart long-term planning.
Experience abroad shows that many high-speed rail lines need big, ongoing government subsidies, but a few become popular enough to pay their own way. The two most successful high-speed rail routes in the world — Tokyo-Osaka in Japan and Paris-Lyon in France — both make money. (The reason Amtrak loses so much is that politicians insist that it keep serving highly subsidized, sparsely traveled routes.)
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