My wife's small hometown (small meaning ~1 million people) in China was served by an HSR station, so we would often take an 8 hour ride on the HSR (on the Beijing - Guangzhou route) to get there. But an airport opened up recently (a decade after the HSR station opened), I think next time we will just take the plane instead given that it is still a very long train ride from Beijing.
I think in the USA, pre-existing airports have reduced demand for HSR. The US has airports in almost every city with more than 500k people, while that is definitely not true in China (even still).
An 8 hour train ride is outside of what is acceptable for normal train use. Up to about 5 hours on the train most people will prefer the train to flying. For short and medium distance trips trains have several advantages. The train is probably closer to your house and where you are going (air ports are way out on the edge of town in most cases, while train stations are closer to the center). You don't have the long wait for security for the train. You get more legroom on the train. For longer trips an airplane is worth those disadvantages, but not for shorter trips.
Yes, but without an airport in my wife's hometown, 8 hours by HSR is better than flying from Beijing to Changsha or Guangzhou and transferring to HSR.
Chinese HSR stations can be as inconveniently located as airports, so that isn't much of a benefit. Security is a bit better, they mostly make you put your bag through some sort of X-ray machine that I doubt they are looking at.
China HSR isn't that impressive. They mostly built outside of city centers then added new developments around the train station, immensly diminishing the costs and construction time for the HSR, at the cost of convenience for already established citizen (and probably feeding their housng bubble too).
Agree however that some of their subway systems are their most impressive engineering feat and prove that they could have done a better job with their HSR.
It's not just the lack of HSR (trains, power, etc), it's the lack of passenger trains in general. The tracks that exist are simply not suitable for greater than 50mph (80kph), and those that might be are dominated by stupidly long cargo trains.
Lots of US rail infrastructure has been quietly being upgraded, and there are portions outside the north east corridor that can hit the technical minimum for high-speed rail now (125 mph).
Pacific Surfliner is one, and it boards millions per year.
The United States sat out the HSR revolution. China built 26,000 miles in the past 20 years. The US has essentially nothing.
Personally, I think the creation of China’s subway system is even more impressive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#:~:text=....