30 years or so ago, I used to think this would be a good idea.
Having to travel between LA and SF for business, the idea of getting on a comfortable euro-style train in LA and off a few hours later in SF for a nominal price sounded great. Airport-free weekend dates to SF would have been fun too.
But the problem with politically financed projects like this is that ultimately political considerations drive the decisions over economic or practical ones. In order to get buy-in in the House of Representatives, everyone needs a station in their district, whether it makes sense to the potential travelers or not. So instead of a theoretically direct 2-3 hour trip for $50 or so, they'll get a highly subsidized 4-5 hour trip with a real cost of $400 or more; The cost of a first class seat on nearly any airline for twice the travel time.
And then President (who is actually in charge of the TSA) jokes that at least you won't have to get an anal exam each time you take his wonderful trains, but who believes that won't be in the future as well as the 2-3x cost overruns that will make taking a private jets look even cheaper by comparison?
