Incidentally, in a world where TLM equipment is becoming cheaper to develop and use, and government-level capital use more 'thinkable', there is no reason why the kind of track system the FRA tested over a decade ago could not be implemented for any 'corridor' where both fast and long/heavy running (e.g. as facilitated by more rapid accelerations) are desired. This has inherently top-down geometry and relatively easy (and automatable) maintenance of fine line and surface, and the test results demonstrated that both Class 9 and HAL could be satisfied at the same time by the same reasonably-economic structure.
(Of course, if you pull on this string, it follows that major capital should go into the track first, and ECP second, before spending extensively on OHLE or fancy proprietary third rail electrification other than dual-mode-lite for the more direct short-distance and subsidized niches...)
The problem is that most shippers aren't as interested in higher speed alone. Most of the current applications where high speed is valuable will be longer runs with sustained high speed (e.g. priority Z trains with blocks for forwarding end-users) and for these, longer consists with better train handling will be more sensible.
I remember being strongly influenced as a 7th or 8th-grader by Perlman's arguments (on WP) for relatively light and more frequent service (presumably run fast to reduce crew hours of service). Some of the other experiments in that period (the C&NW single-manned Falcons IIRC among them) were interesting attempts. I thought surely there was going to be some attempt to fuse Kneiling's integral train with DMT's diesel powertrains... although I thought (and still think) that a better use of these is in relatively dense local service) -- instead we got Iron Highway and HPIT, and the blind alley of low-profile skeleton spine cars, and you can see how those dominated the market over articulated doublestack trains run relatively long between efficient intermodal transfer points... oh, wait. (And I see little reason why modern PSR operation could make more of a success out of them now.)
If I were running 'shuttles' to IE inland ports (which inherently involves not stripping the shipboard boxes) I'd run them long and give them convertible ECP. Some of the traffic is going to involve moving the domestic 53s to the inland ports to be stuffed -- presumably loaded at least in part with material to be exported -- as well as figuring out what to arrange as backhaul in the ocean 48s.
Where I see a niche for initial level 4 autonomy is in the same general area as for yard tractors. Large IM consists can be broken into blocks that can be handled on multiple tracks to minimize dwell in the port facilities, and the blocks can be quickly assembled and tested as loaded. The amount of capital and required infrastructure are orders of magnitude less than for 'electrifying' the local truck equivalent to serve the TEU directly from the port... let alone make them meaningfully or reliably autonomous to operate on public roads.
I personally doubt that there is much point trying to replicate European-style freight (which is usually short and fast to suit subsidized passenger operations, not for operating advantages of its own) unless far better distributed intermodal transfer can be both arranged technically and made reasonably pervasive. A great many people built a great many ramps thinking this would happen with piggyback, and as far as I know most of them lost their butts doing it. By far the best-run of this sort of operations was CP Expressway (in the post-HPIT years) -- for that to be abandoned, with its sensible management and marketing, was sobering.
You seemed to have overlooked the idea in theory that with fast track, freights can be much shorter and faster, opening up completely new business now dominated by trucking. This is what is seen to some extent on fast track (115-125 mph) as opposed to actual HSR track (+150).
I think fundamentally, 100+ car freight trains and passenger trains aren't compatible.
Still hoping for Texas Central. Japanese bullet trains exist because of one man who tirelessly battled government resistance and succeeded.
It's a long discussion and some points may be controversial, but worthy of consideration.
https://www.hsrail.org/blog/eight-principles-establishing-us-passenger-rail-system
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