Because Amtrak moves at glacial speed, I suspect we'll see Jax- West Palm service via Brightline long before Amtrak gets around to it. But it's fun to talk about the 'what if's'. For us, the drive to Daytona is maybe 15 minutes longer than the drive to the Deland station.
And the extension of the Palmetto is still a good idea as it would require no additional infrastructure work and no additional equipment. Since the Palmetto crew now does a round trip FLO-SAV, only one additional crew start would be needed. An kearlier start from NYP would help, maybe combine with the Carolinian to WAS. In the early 90's when it did run to Jax it left NYP at 7:17am (about an hour later than now) and arrived Jax at 12;23am. Northbound it left at 7:00am and arrived NYP at 11:50pm. Savannah departure was 9:20am, also an hour or so later than at present. Of course it then morphed into the Silver Palm, but that would require additional equipment and operating expense.
NC needs a better Carolinian, not combining it with a potentially late Florida train. That's my squabble!
It will be a while. NC has put increased Carolinian frequency in the (late) 2030's bucket, awaiting the NC/VA high(er) speed S-line, which will be after the VA/DC Long Bridge completion (about 2030). The S-line is also tied to major improvements in Richmond, at least conceptually.
The Palmetto is an important train, and is close to being long distance. The mileage from Savannah to DC is 40% greater than Minneapolis to Chicago, for example. But the Palmetto and both the current Florida trains are absent from future planning between NC and Savannah. (Unless the new planning process changes that.) This map from the Southeast Corridor Commission's
2022 "technical" report touts the population and jobs along its planned routes. While it *only* shows the blobs on its planned routes, if it did show everything there would still not be any big blobs between Raleigh and Savannah.
On the other hand, it does show Savannah to Jacksonville is as significant as, say Greenville to half of Atlanta.
Two extra maps appear in the promotional introduction, covering notable corridors missing from the above map, and for which plans and/or service do exist: outlying NC/VA, and Florida generally. Here's Florida:
Probably back before Florida put all its chips in with Brightline (gradually becoming a government contractor, by the way!), it got Tier I approval for Naples.
Everything else on the list is "None to Date," so I omitted them. Examples: Charlotte - Asheville, and Richmond - Charlottesville.
One more thing, these analyses are all about places that are currently large and growing. The other way to look at rail is as bringing new growth to stagnant or declining areas. That's another conversation, but such areas tend to get political attention from state governments.