[lmm]

If you want to say something then say it. No, I don't think there's any particular physical reason for that; I think the poor state of north american passenger rail is almost entirely for political reasons and could be changed if the public had the will to improve it.

[umanwizard]

Beijing and Shanghai are two of the most important cities in the world. Minneapolis and Toronto are not. Of course it’s physically possible to build a high-speed train from Minneapolis to Toronto, but it makes little sense to do so unless you’re building all the O(n^2) point-to-point links between all the medium-importance cities in North America.

[kortilla]

High speed rail requires density.

Toronto and Minneapolis are villages comparatively.

There are significant air routes in China between higher population cities than the MSP, YYZ pairing