Quote Originally Posted by Just the facts View Post
This is one of the problems with true HSR across the plains. With storms rolling across the plains your trip would greatly dependent on storms 500 miles away because you would be there in 90 minutes and no one want to go into a hail storm at 350 mph. If you drew a line from Chicago to Dallas how long would it be before a tornado crossed that line. Now picture trains doing 300 mph traveling along that line. Not pretty.
They would have to stop somewhere until the storm crossed like some freight trains have done, planes have to reroute all the time because of storms. If a 1:1,000,000 chance of a train intersecting a tornado at the exact same moment is what keeps people from taking HSR in this part of the country then they just need to stay in the storm shelters they inevitably have 24 hours a day. Tornadoes do exist in Japan, China and Europe where they do have high speed rail. I'm sure they have dealt with thunderstorms as well, they are not just restricted to the plains states.