"Monorail, What's It Called? Whoops, I meant High Speed Express Train"

Amtrak has announced plans to revamp it's Acela Express trains, which goes from Boston to D.C. in about 7 hours, or from New York to D.C. in 3 hours. These trains, the only high speed trains in the U.S., can go up to an excess of 150 mph, but are kind of lacking to their German and Japanese counterparts which can go over 200 mph. Not only that, but due to track regulations and limited rails, it averages about half of its top speed, about 75-85 mile an hour. Acela plans to not only have faster trains, but also better rails and tunnels. All of this will make for a substantially quicker trip, about 96 minutes from D.C to New York, which is pretty close to Air travel if not even faster. The long term plan will take 30 years, but they are already working on improving the New Jersey line and inserting their 220+mph fleet of trains by 2017. Considering that the current Acela Express accounts for a quarter of AmTrak's revenue and would serve the entire East Coast megalopolis which has 40 million people, I think that this will go down as a success in the long run.