In 2009, Ray LaHood, Barack Obama’s transportation secretary, presented a report to Congress: Vision for High-Speed Rail in America. It set out a plan for the $8 billion allocated to high-speed rail construction under the post-crash American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The project, one of Obama’s flagship policies, was supposed to remedy decades of neglect. The Johnson administration passed the High Speed Ground Transportation Act in 1965, inspired by the launch of Japan’s Shinkansen “bullet train” the previous year. The act gave rise to the Metroliner train service between New York and Washington, DC, which began running in 1969, but little more.

France unveiled its TGV network in 1981; however, it was another two decades before Amtrak rolled out its Acela Express along the Northeast Corridor from Washington, DC, to Boston. Still the fastest line in the United States, the Acela Express can only reach its top speed for a small portion of the route; its average speed is far below the levels in France or Japan.