Having said that, 400 miles or so is probably about the upper limit on the distance at which high speed rail makes obvious sense. Not that longer journeys would never happen, but the relative benefits of air travel start to become greater.
Fortunately, lots of places are within 400 miles of each other! Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Las Vegas to Phoenix. Phoenix to Albuquerque. Albuquerque to Denver.
Anyway, not saying all of these routes would be high priority ones, just that there are a lot of population centers that are in the sweet spot distance wise. When I am your benevolent dictator, priority will be given to linking places with decent mass transit systems. Of course, in my benevolent goodness, I'll also be building decent mass transit systems everywhere whether you like it or not. Because I know best.
