Herein lies the problem of transcontinental rail: How would I get from Colorado Springs to Atlanta with this plan? Would it help to propose some specific routes, in terms of station lists, to help understand the proposal? Lines on a map are a step towards a solution, but the hard thing about long-distance rail travel is that every time you have to change trains, you lose a LOT of time.

A route like

Denver
La Junta
Kansas City
Birmingham
Atlanta

with a change at each of these stations would be quite time-consuming (three days, probably), but a transcontinental route passing through both Denver and Atlanta is also unrealistic.