Amtrak May Cut Back On `Unreliable' Acela - WP. It's a shame the
Acela Express project got so muddied. It was a really good opportunity for Amtrak to boost business in the DC-NYC-BOS corridor, but due to manufacturing and communication mistakes, among other things, the trains are seldom able to run at "express" speed, and apparently very unreliable.
When they run, they're nice trains. I only rode one once, on what ended up being my last New York trip before leaving the east coast. The train was smooth, the seats were nice, the cafe car was fun, and I was able to use it to actually catch up to a train I had missed. I was trying to get from NYC back to
Fredericksburg, VA, and after much thought had decided to take the train back instead of the Delta or US Airways shuttle, which I had grown quite fond of. I bust in to Union Station after a taxi ride through some of the worst NYC traffic (in city - not counting tunnel/bridge traffic) I had been in for quite some time, and noticed that I had narrowly missed the train that would take me to Fredericksburg. Fortunately, that train had actually been a little bit late in leaving, and I noticed there was an
Acela Express that was leaving shortly and due to arrive in DC a few minutes before the Fredericksburg-bound train left DC's Union Station (all trains going south of DC take about twenty minutes to a half hour in DC to change engines from Electric to Diesel). So I hopped it, hoping there would be no significant problems. There weren't any, and I made it to the other train in time.
Definitely one thing I miss about Fredericksburg is the train access. There were a few Amtrak trains that came through a day, and one could use their commuter rail passes to ride Amtrak up to DC. From there, you could go anywhere.
Besides my European trip last fall, I've hardly been out of the Salt Lake valley (besides some Park City ski days) since returning back here last August. I miss having the money to travel, and I also miss the ease of east-coast traveling. It was only a few hours by train to any good city (DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York), even less when putting the Delta / US Air shuttles to use. And, before September 11th, the Delta/US Air shuttles were almost as easy to use as the train. It was great to just be able to walk on with one bag, a copy of
The New Yorker for the trip up (to help find out what was going on that weekend), or
The Economist for the trip back (a nice sunday morning jet plane ride with bagels and coffee).
Hopefully Amtrak can come up with a decent solution to the Acela difficulties for the populous corridors. And hopefully, the long haul system can get overhauled (no pun intended) or opened up enough for trains to start showing up again where they make sense. Like a Salt Lake to Wendover line... Ahh, there's a good way to waste a weekend.