Hmmmmmmmmm............
New Yawk to LaLa Land is approximately 3,500 miles. On a plane you hardly ever get a direct flight and get shuttled to some hub in say Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver etc. So with a stop to change planes on a 600 mph jet (6 hours direct), a flight across country takes 8 hours or more. Okay?
A direct train at 300 mph is 11 hours or so. Certainly this is comparable. Yes?
Hell, Madden had to have a $50,000 bus made for him to do the play by play during this football season since he hates flying so much!
No. First, I normally do take non-stop flights when I'm traveling long distances. Second, you can't really believe that a transcontinental train trip would be non-stop, can you?
Maglev trains haven't a prayer unless they are traveling along high-density or heavily-traveled corridors, and then they will likely need several stops along the way. That makes for tough trade-off decisions: Too many stops, and your average speed drops significantly. Too few stops, and you lose potential customers. Whereas with planes you can take your choice of short hops or long non-stops or intermediate hub-and-spoke arrangements, each having its own marketing price-points.