We pass into Ohio, juxtaposing farms and small towns. Leisure travel by rail has one great advantage over highway travel: we get a flavor of the land we're passing through. Conventional railroads value flatness; better to avoid an unnecessary grade and detour around spectacular terrain. High-speed rail, on the other hand, needs to be straighter than any highway. The French TGV would've derailed on American railroads long below its world-record speed of 357 mph (575 km/hr), you need straight rails to travel at half the speed of a jet airliner.