[rsynnott]

> The Overland Route is now freight-only, and the closest equivalent, the California Zephyr, takes about 52 hours to make the journey this train did in just 40!

I mean, this is largely a product of the US's general disinterest in and underinvestment in passenger rail; with a modern high speed system it'd be about 10 hours.

10 hours is _probably_ too long to be particularly useful, mind you; people would just fly. The sweet spot for high-speed rail is more in the 5 hour and less range; at that point when you factor in the faffing around involved in getting to airports, going through security, the inevitable delays etc, the train is still faster.

The longest high-speed route in the world is about this length: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing–Kunming_high-speed_tra...

[chrisco255]

It's doubtful that you could build a high speed rail that could fly from Chicago through the Rockies to California in 10 hours. Even more doubtful that the cost benefit would be worth it considering you can fly from Chicago to the Bay Area in 3.5 hours. And you can't factor time spent getting to airport and not factor time to train station and time to stop at other major cities on the way (as trains are wont to do).

The Chinese route you mentioned does not need to go through one of the largest mountain ranges in the world. It's also at least 15-20% shorter than the distance from Chicago to SF, and experiences much less elevation change over the course of the journey. And the wiki article claims it "averages 10.5 to 13.5 hours", so there is a huge amount of variability in time to travel on that route.

[rsynnott]

> And the wiki article claims it "averages 10.5 to 13.5 hours", so there is a huge amount of variability in time to travel on that route.

Yeah, I think it depends on how many stops it calls it; there are a few different services on that line. While it's a high speed line they're mostly not classic express services and actually have quite a few stops. I'd expect a notional Chicago->California high speed line would have fewer. A journey with no stops at all at 300km/h (ie high standard high speed rail, but not absolute state of the art) would be 10 hours; any stops would add a bit.

> And you can't factor time spent getting to airport and not factor time to train station

As a general rule, airports are not hugely conveniently located. Normally intercity rail in big cities will depart from a central train station, which usually will really be quite central, and will be linked into all the other transport. You get there, and walk onto the train, and you're done.

The airport will _never_ be central, for obvious reasons, and if it has a rail line at all, it will likely be a single line, usually relatively infrequent, and, for some reason, with the airport end almost always extremely inconveniently located (this seems to be a law of nature). You'll want to get there at least an hour in advance, and the plan will likely be delayed at least somewhat on both ends. At least one queue will be involved. On the other end, you will then make your way slowly into the city.

[campl3r]

10 hours are perfect for a night train