Benefits to the Environment:
Land Use Planning Benefits:
Economic and Social Benefits:
"Safety: The senate report points out that rail safety standards follow very different philosophies in the U.S. than in Europe and Japan. Europe/Japan relies on accident avoidance through precise engineering of tracks and vehicle wheelsets. The U.S. relies on accident survivability through careful design of rail cars. In practice, this means that U.S. rail cars are much heavier than those in Europe/Japan.
Obviously, lighter weight vehicles are less expensive to build and require less energy to move. The Authority assumed it would use such vehicles in its 220-mph trains. This allowed it to project, for example, that despite the high speeds its trains would use less than half as much energy, per passenger mile, than Amtrak’s trains.
For the most part, the European/Japanese philosophy has worked very well as there have been few fatal high-speed rail accidents. But the above photos illustrate the differences in safety standards. The photo above is of a high-speed rail accident, caused by a faulty wheel, in Germany. Several of the cars were smashed to pieces and more than 100 people were killed.
This photo is of the 2005 commuter-rail accident in Glendale, California. Most of the railcars in this accident are intact and only 11 people were killed. Granted that the Glendale train was not going as fast as the German train, the U.S. rail cars were still more survivable." See article. "Other considerations
Although air travel has higher speeds, more time is needed for taxiing, boarding (fewer doors), security check, luggage drop, ticket check and more. Also rail stations are usually located nearer to urban centers than airports. These factors often offset the speed advantage of air travel for mid-distance trips.
Rail travel has less weather dependency than air travel. If the rail system is well-designed and well-operated, severe weather conditions such as heavy snow, heavy fog, and storms do not affect the journeys; whereas flights are generally canceled or delayed under these conditions. Nevertheless snow and falling trees because of wind often delay trains.
Although comfort over air travel is often believed to be a trait of high speed rail, it is not inherent; it depends on the specific implementation. For example, high speed trains, which are not subject to compulsory reservation, may carry some standing passengers. Airplanes do not allow standing passengers, so excess passengers are denied boarding. Train passengers can have the choice between standing or waiting for a bookable connection.
From the operator's point of view, a single train can call at multiple stations, often far more stops than aircraft, and each stop takes much less down time. One train stopping pattern can allow a multitude of possible journeys, increasing the potential market. This increase in potential market allows the operator to schedule more frequent departures than the aircraft, and hence create another good reason for preference.
From the point of view of required traffic control systems and infrastructure, high-speed rail has the added advantage of being much simpler to control due to its predictable course, even at very high passenger loads; this issue is becoming more relevant as air traffic reaches its safe limit in busy airspaces over London, New York, and other large centers. However, it must be noted that high speed rail systems eliminate the possibility of traffic collisions with automobiles (adding cost, simplicity, and safety), while other lower speed rail systems that a high speed train uses to reach high speed tracks may have grade crossings." See wikipedia.