Comment by altcognito

Eh, you're overselling it. Even in a hypothetical world with a 12 hour train trip, it still loses to an 8 hour plane trip.

You're losing an entire day on the train. You still have to deal with luggage pains, now you're eating on the transportation which will be inferior, and will have similar problems with last mile transportation.

Flying is currently not a great 8 hour experience, but it beats losing an entire day. I can do LA to NY for a weekend trip. (I personally wouldn't but there are some that would for sure)

Trains can and do make sense even in the US, and we do ourselves great harm by underinvesting in them, but there will always be a place for plane travel.