Slower Speed Link-Up
If they did it at 30 MPH or even 60 then you would only need around 15 miles of precisely aligned set of tracks in order to transfer people from one to another in a 5 minute period.
That would likely save 20 minutes of stop time going into / out of a station and over a 30 station trip (1 every 100 miles?) that would save 600 minutes thus 6 hours of travel time and the resultant higher efficiency.
Now as to if the Federal Government would spend the 4.4 billion dollars it would take to build 30 sets of dual 15 miles of tracks(at 5 million a mile, yes, lowball cost to make it look better) plus a few billion per train (and would need at least 10 trains running, plus 5 spares for maintenance / testing / research) so add in another 15 billion there and that only allows ONE set of point to point travel like NY to LA. If you don't live along the line within 200 miles then no one is going to use it.
It took around 80 years to get the whole US rail net up and 30 years to destroy it since the last heydays in the 1950s.
To build out nationally it would take around a trillion dollars and over 30 years.
Now if it was REALLY economical - it would have already been built. But since it has NEVER been built - it kind of proves not economical from a commerical aspect. Only if you tax everyone who may never use it via some government fiat would it ever be built.
