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High speed rail doesn't work that way. You have to build it as high speed from the get-go, as there are dozens of non-trivial requirements which must be met around the infrastructure in order for it to work.

It would be like building four lane arterial road through your city and thinking you could just "up the speed" later on and suddenly have an interchange-access highway.

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I understand you'd have to lay new track when you wanted to add HSR. The point is you have an existing network people can use to get to your HSR endpoints.

Laying the track isn't the hard part. The hard parts are securing right-of-way; eliminating grades, curves, and level crossings; and keeping the track-way secure from people, livestock, wildlife, and adverse weather.

Right... which is what I meant by "laying the track". If it was just a question of putting down rails it wouldn't be very expensive.

Not for plain old steel-on-ties rails, no. It's far easier to upgrade the rails than the right-of-way.

You might as well bury dark fiber somewhere in there, no matter what else you do. Use one strand for signaling, and lease the rest to backhauler telecoms.

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