I&#x27;m always confused by the high-speed rail numbers.  Exactly how many trains would it take to get 2&#x2F;3 of the US population using rail?<p>Take the average international-sized airport runway.  It can land a 747 every couple minutes.  That&#x27;s hundreds of people every minute.  A high-speed rail line cannot take even a fraction of that number.  The trains cannot run at speed without significant time&#x2F;distance between them.  That&#x27;s the limit of one-dimension travel (rail) v the three dimensional world of aircraft.  It would take dozens of parallel rail lines to replace even a medium sized airport.  While we all might want to use rail for some journeys, I don&#x27;t see it ever competing with air travel in the US market.