4 ms·

I take the NYC to Boston all the time, and the experience / service has been good. I live in NYC and have family in Boston, so Amtrack has been my main mode of

I take the NYC to Boston all the time, and the experience / service has been good. I live in NYC and have family in Boston, so Amtrack has been my main mode of transportation. I purposely take the slow train (not the Accela), as it is both cheaper, and easier to work while traveling (restaurant cars). For people that live in the midwest, I can see how Amtrack is this old rag-tag thing, that serves no purpose, but for the North Eastern Corridor, Amtrack is a life saver. I wish this country could invest more into rail routes, and make them faster, instead of spending trillion of dollars in sensless wars. With half of that 2 trillion dollars that we spent on Afghanistan, (and whatever we did in Iraq), we could have had high speed rail in most of the larger cities, at least 10 major routes, making it almost a national high speed rail system. Right now we have 0.

vagrantJin 5y ago
Hmm. Interesting. The US has no intercity trains? Is there a reason? I've always seen the NYC subway in movies and just recklessly assumed all major US cities are connected by rail...which is silly of me in hindsight.
- mastax 5y ago
  The northeast corridor (Boston to DC) is very popular and profitable for Amtrak. They have routes connecting major cities in the rest of the country but they're slow, expensive and unreliable. They're pretty much only ridden by train enthusiasts, people who are very afraid of flying, or banned from flying.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    My experiences on Amtrak Boston to NYC (and previously BOS to BWI station) are that it’s slow, expensive, and unreliable in the NE corridor as well. I’m sure it’s profitable for Amtrak, but I’d estimate I arrive within 15 minutes of the published timetable less than half the time.
- idunno246 5y ago
  they exist, but arent really used. the us is much bigger / less dense intercity. going across the coasts is six hour flights but days(4ish i think) by train and significantly more cost, with not many cities in the middle that people stop at. too few people would use so theres no motivation to make it faster. where it works decently well is northeast, because the cities are very close together(dc,philly,nyc,boston). but it's usually much more expensive than driving/bussing and takes roughly the same time.
- cbm-vic-20 5y ago
  There are a number of reasons: * For most of the country, cities are really far apart. * The US has excellent freight rail network. They lease their lines to Amtrak, but they only have secondary priority. Passenger trains often have to wait behind slow freight, or even allow freight trains to pass them. * After WW2, the US aggressively built the interstate highway system, which simultaneously caused suburbanization and killed intercity passenger rail. Like the other commenter says, the Northeast Corridor between DC and Boston is an exception, as the cities are closer, and there isn't as much freight traffic, and the highways have a lot of car and truck traffic.
  - secabeen 5y ago
    > The US has excellent freight rail network. They lease their lines to Amtrak, but they only have secondary priority. Passenger trains often have to wait behind slow freight, or even allow freight trains to pass them. This is only partially true, as I understand it. Amtrak has highest priority, as long as it stays within its schedule windows. When two trains pass as scheduled, Amtrak always gets the main line, and the freight has to wait in a siding. However, if Amtrak is delayed, and misses its window, then it has to wait, as freight does not have to give up its spot and be delayed to let amtrak make up time.
gumby 5y ago
I’ve taken the Acela train between NYC and BOS quite a few times. You can go straight from penn sta to south station or back bay, which is pretty convenient when compared to the airports. As for speed: they don’t call it “Acela” for nothing: it can cruise at a blistering 80 MPH!! For up to 15 minutes! Actually in all my trips only once did it go that fast. And on that trip any gains were nullified by an unexplained 40 minute pause in the middle of nowhere (not near any station). When I compare it to the experience of Thalys, TGV, ICE, Shinkansen (all of which at various times I have used for regular work trips) et al: what a joke. The US does as well at building infrastructure as it does at winning wars.

vagrantJin 5y ago

Hmm. Interesting. The US has no intercity trains? Is there a reason? I've always seen the NYC subway in movies and just recklessly assumed all major US cities are connected by rail...which is silly of me in hindsight.

mastax 5y ago
The northeast corridor (Boston to DC) is very popular and profitable for Amtrak. They have routes connecting major cities in the rest of the country but they're slow, expensive and unreliable. They're pretty much only ridden by train enthusiasts, people who are very afraid of flying, or banned from flying.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  My experiences on Amtrak Boston to NYC (and previously BOS to BWI station) are that it’s slow, expensive, and unreliable in the NE corridor as well. I’m sure it’s profitable for Amtrak, but I’d estimate I arrive within 15 minutes of the published timetable less than half the time.
idunno246 5y ago
they exist, but arent really used. the us is much bigger / less dense intercity. going across the coasts is six hour flights but days(4ish i think) by train and significantly more cost, with not many cities in the middle that people stop at. too few people would use so theres no motivation to make it faster. where it works decently well is northeast, because the cities are very close together(dc,philly,nyc,boston). but it's usually much more expensive than driving/bussing and takes roughly the same time.
cbm-vic-20 5y ago
There are a number of reasons: * For most of the country, cities are really far apart. * The US has excellent freight rail network. They lease their lines to Amtrak, but they only have secondary priority. Passenger trains often have to wait behind slow freight, or even allow freight trains to pass them. * After WW2, the US aggressively built the interstate highway system, which simultaneously caused suburbanization and killed intercity passenger rail. Like the other commenter says, the Northeast Corridor between DC and Boston is an exception, as the cities are closer, and there isn't as much freight traffic, and the highways have a lot of car and truck traffic.
- secabeen 5y ago
  > The US has excellent freight rail network. They lease their lines to Amtrak, but they only have secondary priority. Passenger trains often have to wait behind slow freight, or even allow freight trains to pass them. This is only partially true, as I understand it. Amtrak has highest priority, as long as it stays within its schedule windows. When two trains pass as scheduled, Amtrak always gets the main line, and the freight has to wait in a siding. However, if Amtrak is delayed, and misses its window, then it has to wait, as freight does not have to give up its spot and be delayed to let amtrak make up time.

gumby 5y ago

I’ve taken the Acela train between NYC and BOS quite a few times. You can go straight from penn sta to south station or back bay, which is pretty convenient when compared to the airports. As for speed: they don’t call it “Acela” for nothing: it can cruise at a blistering 80 MPH!! For up to 15 minutes! Actually in all my trips only once did it go that fast. And on that trip any gains were nullified by an unexplained 40 minute pause in the middle of nowhere (not near any station). When I compare it to the experience of Thalys, TGV, ICE, Shinkansen (all of which at various times I have used for regular work trips) et al: what a joke. The US does as well at building infrastructure as it does at winning wars.