>>2033091Your basic idea is not wrong, but the thing with HSR is that the initial investment is often enormous, and operation only profitable if you have high demand. That's why almost all HSR lines are built as state enterprises, though they might allow private operators afterwards and turn a profit which over time will make up for the initial investment.
Keep in mind that for HSR you need infrastructure all the way, while flying you just need one airport at each end. Only if you can move a lot of people the HSR becomes profitable while keeping prices reasonable.
The whole thing becomes more realistic if you can use an existing rail line like that Florida company did, or upgrade an existing line to higher standards. Augusta to Atlanta is 150 miles, so you'd need to achieve speeds of at least 100 mph, ideally +120mph. That's a pretty tall order for rail lines that are probably built to 80mph standards at best.
Also the question is how much demand you'd get for travel between Augusta and Atlanta. How much demand for airline travel is there? A few small-ish jets a day maybe? That would be utterly unrealistic for HSR to be profitable. You have to look for connections with at least a dozen daily flights with normal-sized jets.
tbqh I think it would make more sense to offer an intercity rail connection at speeds that can compete with highways. Say a two to two and a half hour trip from Augusta to Atlanta. That's still not much worse than flying, but in America most people will probably take just as long in getting to the train station than to the airport, so you lose even that advantage.
