would suck tho

As it’s run now, yes.

Because rail is the abused bastard and air travel has the government pay for most of it’s everything.

Cars too. The government buys your roads, your gas, your parking, and part of your car for you. Only trains need to more than vaguely gesture at paying their own way in this country.

Yes, the theoretical maximum speed for a plane is faster, but we dont fly supersonic anymore, and supersonic trains still exist.

hop on hop off

As run right now, sure. If we invested half as much in trains as cars and planes? Oh, easily. And even right now, amtrak’s ‘trip insurance’ is basically license to do exactly that. I have used it this way before.