Originally Posted by Shiva_TD

At less than 1/2% of the land area of the United States there is one hell of a difference between building a subteranean rail service in Switzerland and the United States. And the costs do not go down because the government is paying for something. Typically they go up. As I noted in a previous post the cost is over $80 million per mile so a nationwide highspeed subteranean rail system would cost more than 500 years of the entire federal budget just to connect the large cities.

Of course the system does not be underground. Above ground rail is only a fraction of the cost of subteranean rail systems. There have been proposals for a high speed rail between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The economics of it simply haven't worked though but might someday in the future. When it becomes economically feasable it will happen.