Working on the Railroad

Ray LaHood sounds gleeful in his whitehouse.gov blog posting about high-speed rail.  It is a pretty exciting project.  I like trains.  I don’t really know why they have to be high-speed except  that they are commuter runs, meant, in many areas, to rival air flights.  Does he really say that the LA to San Francisco run would only take 2 ½ hours?  Wow.