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What serious person is pitching LA -> DC as a city pair for HSR?

The best routes are the ones that replace short-haul flights that are currently really inconvenient in terms of driving and rail service. A route like New York to Toronto would make plenty of sense, where you have two major population centers that are very close together, but a huge headache to travel between by rail today (at 12+ hours total on Amtrak and Via Rail).

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NY to Toronto actually doesn't make sense because there is a border. I took that train ride and it took 2 hours to clear the border. Even today the guideline is 90 mins - 2 hours. The whole trip took 15 hours. Never again.

I could have flown it in less than 2 hours, security included. The flight would have cost less too!

The only way it would work is PreClearance on both sides (but then again, Canada has never been interested in staffing PreClearance in the US, even though they had reciprocal rights to do it). They only started their first one this year in rural NY.

The parent comment said "cross country".

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