Sometimes I wonder why anyone bothers.
The French have trains running right now that can do SF to LA in two hours more or less. With all due respect to my colleagues in Monterey, San Luis Obispo and SB, there is nothing to stop such a train between SF and LA.
It's comfortable, you can spread out in it no matter what your weight, and you can open your laptop to its fullest extent, plug it in, and work the entire time, without being disturbed by or disturbing your neighbor. And without having to take your shoes off, or remove your nipple rings, before boarding.
As far as I see, the only weaknesses are (a) nobody thinks like that, and (b) LA has no particular center to which it would make sense to bring such a train (somewhat different to the situation in the 1930's).
Sorry, forgot one weakness. The sorry history of the Acela service (assuming that everyone else thinks they have to do as badly. Some people might conclude that there is only one thing less customer friendly than a US airline, and that is a US train service.
These are either the ravings of a mental midget, or of somebody thinking outside of the weirdly constrained US box (not that it's hard). Take your pick.
PBL