I keep having to remind people about the sweet spot for passenger rail gaining the majority of the market share over air flights; i.e.
3 hours.
It is a world wide statistic, including America's NEC. It's not the maximum speeds that count over 3 hours distance, but the average speeds.
Salt Lake City to Denver by the Zephyr route is 570 miles, by I-80 and I-25 highways it is 521 miles.
Using the smaller number, to get between Denver and Salt Lake City within 3 hours the train would have to average 174 mph. No train in the world has an average speed that fast. Just as a single example, the world famous Eurostar between London and Paris takes 2 hours and 16 minutes to go 342 kilometers or 213 miles. It averages around 95 mph.
213 miles /2.25 hours = 94.6 mph
FYI: There are no mountain ranges for the Eurostar to navigate through between London and Paris to slow it down. At its lowest point, the Chunnel is 75 m (250 ft) deep below the sea bed and 115 m (380 ft) below sea level. We are talking about an elevation change far less than 500 feet. Moffit Tunnel elevation is 9239 feet above sea level, Denver is 5280 feet above sea level, and Salt Lake City is 4226 feet above sea level. We're discussing an elevation change of 3959 feet at a minimum, and 5013 feet at a maximum.
9239 - 5280 = 3959 , 9239 - 4226 = 5013
We're talking about 8 to 10 times more of an elevation change - to Moffit Tunnel. The highest elevation of I-80 in Wyoming is 8,640 feet, just 599 feet less than Moffit Tunnel.
Good luck keeping high speed trains at maximum speeds over those grades.
Assuming the Denver to Salt Lake City HSR train could average 96 mph over these 521 miles, it would take the train 5 hours and 26 minutes to make the trip. Significantly more than the sweet spot of 3 hours to compete with airlines. That's the equivalent distance and times for Acela between Boston and D.C. where Amtrak's market share is
??????????%.
Per
https://www.planetizen.com/node/58061
Ron Nixon describes how Amtrak travel in the Northeast, the nation's busiest corridor, took off after the introduction of Amtrak's high-speed Acela train in 2000. Prior to its introduction, the nation's train service had 37% of the travel between NY and D.C. and 20% between NY and Boston. The mode share has jumped to 75% and 54% respectively, greatly boosted by the tightening of airport security after Sept. 11, 2001 which added long waits and inconvenience to air travel.
Per
https://www.railpassengers.org/site/...les/3480/1.pdf
Passenger trips per length 2019
0- 99 mi 14.6%
100- 199 mi 26.9%
200- 299 mi 56.6%
300- 399 mi 1.2%
400+ mi 0.6%
FYI: Boston to D.C. is 457 rail miles and around 7 hours.
If 56.6% of Amtrak Acela travelers can get close to 75% market share, what do you think the market share would be for 0.6% of Acela travelers?
1%?
It is so bad Amtrak does not publicize it.
Which brings us back to why I added this response. 500+ miles between major city pairs through the Rocky and Wasatch Mountain ranges is too far for a practical high speed rail line. Golly, 500+ miles between major city pairs would be too far to be practical on the Northeast Corridor too.
Do not confuse the 457 mile NEC route between Boston and D.C. with the shorter NEC city pairs routes of NYC and D.C. and NYC and Boston. The ridership results based on distance and time are far, far different even on the NEC.
And the same would be true over the 421 miles between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, over the 540 miles between Denver and Omaha, over the 518 miles between Reno and Salt Lake City, and over the 782 miles between Eugene and Salt Lake City. Stop trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Too far is still too far.
Well, someone will surely argue that these distances are not too far if they could get the average speeds of the trains higher. So, how fast would a train have to average for the above examples to meet the 3 hours sweet spot.
421/3 = 140 mph average
540/3 = 180 mph average
518/3 = 172 mph average
782/3 = 260 mph average
Let's remind everyone once again the world famous Eurostar between London and Paris averages 96 mph.