Of course the train will have to stop every 30 miles so people in those towns arent denied their rights.
But it will be a high speed train.
No need to: You set up platforms at each town where passengers want to board the train.
In the small towns, leave the platforms mostly unmanned, save for a ticket booth and a guard.
Since the train does NOT stop at this particular platform, one can signal the train in an electronic manner, using a wireless network (public cel phone, private wireless network, &c.).
One can even put data services along the third rail of the track—”Power line data carrier” is what the eggheads (like me) call it.
With repeaters placed along the side of the tracks, this method can also be used to provide Internet services to passengers on the train.
The train is signalled either a) when the ticket is issued/paid for, or b) when the departure time is reached.
Furthermore, there may not be a need to place a ticket booth at each platform; a display showing the current path of the train, and a small electronic signalling buzzer could suffice.
Passengers buy their tickets on the train.
See? A high-speed train may yet be possible—if no one is signalling the train, the engineer can skip over the towns at full speed.
While I do NOT support such a waste of money in the first place, when I got around to this article, my engineering brain set off—once started, it does not stop until a solution is reached :-)