> In China (put aside all the political issues at the moment), they were building elevated track to the tune of something like a mile a day at the peak. (On the order of that magnitude -- elevated! Not even just plain track on bare earth)

> What does that produce? A rail-building skilled workforce (10,000+ engineers) that has lots of practice, expertise, and templates to stamp out that stuff like it's their business. Here, we do this now, what, once per decade?

Economies of scale, and "economies of knowledge" are a very sensible argument when it comes to operating a fleet of expensive capital equipment, or capital intensive building projects.

Take a look on Emirates Airlines. They are the only company in the world who made money on their Airbus A380. Why? They operates 100+ of them.

Same with HSR in China, not tricks involved. Though it's still a heavily subsidised, loss making business, but their "core" service in between major cities makes quite a lot of money.