Last year, it was announced that a $929 million grant for California's high-speed rail system was being cancelled in a serious blow to U.S. high-speed rail ambitions. The U.S. already trails much of the developed world in high-speed rail, lagging far behind China and Europe when it comes to kilometres of operational track. In line with its meteoric economic ascent, China has made considerable progress in building a high-speed rail network over the past 15 years. It had just over 35,000km in operation in February 2020 according to and that accounts for about two thirds of high-speed track worldwide.
Japan was the first country to develop high-speed railway lines and today, its Shinkansen or bullet train operates along 3,000km of track. Spain has a similarly long network at 3,330km while France and Germany have 2,734km and 1,571km respectively. At the start of this year, the U.S. only had 735km of track in operation, a figure unlikely to rise any time soon.
