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Its a hell of a lot easier to fly over the dozens or hundreds of different landowners and jurisdictions than it is to convince each of them to allow you to build a giant railroad through them

The us rail infra was built when this wasn't an issue or could be solved by sending some heavies in or bribing the right people.

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Texas Central is about 1/3 of the way through right of way acquisition on their Houston to Dallas route.

http://www.texascentral.com/alignment-maps/

They're partnering with Japan National Railways and planning on running the N700-I Bullet total system (the international version of the Tokaido Shinkansen).

The landowner problem was much worse in Japan and Europe, but was overcome with cash and persuasion. The US rail construction problem is much more complicated and costly than that.

And it applies to urban rail where the right of way is entirely public just as much as high speed.

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