The problem here has nothing to do with high-speed rail technology. AFter all, there re a number of places in the world where these things have been built, work just fine, and everybody loves them. But nothing major will be built in our society until a serious public reaction takes place against NIMBYism. It needs to be made uncool, like smoking.
Search the history of the George Lucas studio debacle for an illustrative case.
It’s not just NIMBY, it is the fact that trains are all government owned. Get rid of Amtrak, sell all publicly owned commuter rail in the cities to private investors, kill public employee unions. Open up rail travel to competition, or get rid of it.