I lived in Europe a long time and a couple of huge differences between them and us are: most countries are socialistic in nature and the average citizen pays a lot more in taxes for cradle to grave coverage and infrastructure. Also, the distances involved are a lot shorter than here. Germany itself is only the size of Oregon and Washington. Also, their politics (aside from the British) are not as screwed up as ours.

Much of why we do not have high speed rail is due to the oil industry buying up rail right of ways. Big oil engineered their dominance early on, working overtime to ensure a dependence on all things made with and using crude.
It would be nice to break the hold big oil has here in the U.S. and globally.

They are amazing, but need to have stations a long way apart. There is no advantage to zooming up to full speed, then slowing down to stop again every ten minutes.
Therefore, there is still a need for slower, local trains.

180mph/300kph and on time