Flutterby™! : High speed rail failed in the '40s.

The Anti-Planner - How the Feds Put the Brakes on High-Speed Trains. Interesting perspective, I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about passenger rail, but this points out that rail ridership fell off before the interstate highway system, and that the reason for that might have been federal standards for signalling systems that made speeds high enough to be competitive with the automobile to expensive.