My response was that this “I want trains so people can have cross country road trips on the weekend” just wasnt practical

You deliberately selected a pair of destinations with one of the longest possible lines, then complained that said travel was "too long".

But right now it’s set up horrible so it is more expensive and takes longer for most even semi long trips.

The US has a policy of de-prioritizing passenger rail in favor of commercial shipping. If you're a lump of coal or a box of Amazon merch, you make the Orlando to Charleston run significantly faster.

Cheapest and fastest route is to drive.

This is a result of domestic policy, not material efficiency. You can make the Beijing to Shanghai route - 819 mi - in around 5.5 hrs, the same time it would take you to cover the 380 mi car ride from Orlando to Charleston. Twice as fast as an American bus over less than half the distance.

That's because the state and municipal governments decided to build a major HSR artery between these two cities. A deliberate policy choice.

As another counterpoint, the Amtrak route from DC to NYC (238 mi) is a 3HR train ride that takes you straight into the center of Manhattan. The Lincoln Tunnel and the Washington Bridge alone can take north of an hour to get through on rush hour. Nevermind riding a car up from Virginia.

Why does DC/NYC have a high speed artery while Orland/Charleston not? It certainly isn't because people don't want to travel up and down the Atlantic Coast in large numbers, particularly during tourist season. But the "quality" of the passengers - working class schmucks, rather than Wall Street business goons and DC politicians - is significantly different.

What a ridiculous take.

1. If driving is better for you, then drive
2. You’re choosing a route without practical train service.

To me your argument is that yes, we need to build up more usable rail here so it can be a reasonable choice. If Acela were there, it might be a better choice, and that doesn’t even count as “high speed”.

As someone in the NorthEast, not likely to ever take a train to Florida, let’s git’r done. I can see the huge advantage of the long connected route serving the whole coast, for the thousands of intermediate trips that would become feasible, even if I personally wouldn’t benefit