There are a lot of posts about this helping develop "in between" the two cities. But would a high speed rail have stops in between? That seems like it would defeat the purpose.
It wouldn't do much for small towns between the cities...unless, they expand the project and build a passenger train line that makes stops...but you would need a bump in population and economic growth(more jobs) in each city for that to happen.
The northeast is a good example of how trains have caused a massive growth in the area. New Jersey probably would be desolate if it were not for the New Jersey transit. New Jersey is essentially a big suburb for New York City and Philadelphia. Alot of people working in private corporations in any of those cities probably lives in New Jersey and takes NJT/MTA to go to new York and NJT/SEPTA for Philadelphia.