Or more recently, Brightline built a private high speed rail in Florida for $5 billion, spanning 170 miles. It’s hard to imagine a plausible reason this should cost 100 billion, especially given the fact they already have Amtrak rail running through California
> Orlando to Miami 236 miles. Time listed on Wikipedia 210min or 3.5hrs. 236/3.5=67mph.
As an average speed, that is of course correct. But that includes 6 stops along the way, as well as the time needed to enter and exit the stations before being back on high-speed tracks, and the time needed to decelerate/accelerate.
So that doesn't preclude a top speed of 125 mph on some portions of the track.
Ideally you would want a high-speed train on dedicated track, with dedicated stations, and few stops, as done in France, for example. You can choose to have train connections from stations inside city centers, as done in Germany, but than you will loose a lot of time actually getting to these stations, and consequently have a substantial lower average traveling speed.
