Passenger rail won’t ever replace the airline industry. That’s because the point is to supplant long distance car travel. Where passenger rail really looks great is in the Rust Belt, where you have several large urban areas between two and five hours apart from each other from Illinois to Pennsylvania. Personally, I would have killed the last few years if I could have traveled from Columbus to Cleveland or Cincinnati without putting 300 miles on my car each time.
Also, this is so wrong, yet so, so right.