Relative to the current situation or in absolute terms? If there was a Shinkansen style trains between LA and SF with the same quality and timetable as the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka, do you not think Americans would flock to it?
A train might make that hour up by not needing to get in and out of SFO/LAX/etc.
In Tokyo, they’re fast partly because you don’t need to trek to the airport (yes, even Haneda) and deal with security etc. You just… get on the train and bam are downtown in the next place.
Sadly, with commercial air travel the time a passenger spends on the plane between say SF and LA represents only a small portion of their total travel time. This is commonly overlooked or not understood by people unfamiliar with traveling by train.
I’ve flown it plenty of times. Get to the airport 60min before flight, and you’re out of LAX in less than 30 min.
How early do you need to get to the train station?
Not to mention if you miss your train how quickly can you jump on another train?
I’m not arguing it’s not a nice alternative, but there is a reason why flying is still highly in demand even with high quality rail systems like in Europe.
You arrive at the station when the train is about to depart, not an hour or more before like you're forced to when flying. But even better, the station is in the center of town, rather than the middle of nowhere, reaching which again significantly lengthens your travel time.
You can jump on another flight faster than you can jump on another train? I rarely fly more than a couple times a month, but for me this is never true.