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I like the idea of the BOS-NYC Amtrak. When there aren't delays it's fantastic. More pleasant trip than flying, no security theater, and I'm right in the middle
by jghn 5y ago
I like the idea of the BOS-NYC Amtrak. When there aren't delays it's fantastic. More pleasant trip than flying, no security theater, and I'm right in the middle of the city when I arrive.
But to your point, more than half the time I take that trip there's some delay on the rails, usually in the CT corridor.
- sokoloff 5y agoThe idea is fantastic. The reality is not.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThe reality is so bad that people would rather ride the Fung Wa bus.
- hawaiianbrah 5y agoOh man! I remember riding fung wa over a decade ago. Wow, time flies.
- jghn 5y agoI have some "fond" memories of the Fung Wah circa 2002-2005. I use to take it roundtrip about once a week during that time period. There was the time that we broke down on the Triborough Bridge and were stuck for hours. Or the time that a woman managed to lock herself in the bathroom without anyone else knowing. And there were no lights on in there. And it was night. So she spent a few hours screaming for help in a stinky bus bathroom, with no help to be found.
- micromacrofoot 5y agothey’re also speed limited in that CT area because it’s a residential area iirc, so it’s not even full speed service
- bobthepanda 5y agoWell the commuter trains don't run at the Acela speeds, and even if they did they stop and go more often. If you were to run the Acelas even faster that would mostly have the effect of bumping into the commuter trains in front more often. The only way to do this would be to run less commuter trains, but those trains are fairly busy, and also run by the actual owner of the tracks. Amtrak's various unfunded fantasies for upgrading the corridor have usually included a dedicated pair of tracks for Amtrak for a reason. (I say fantasy because the proposals are always in the $115B+ range and every time I blink the number is probably going up, and that is an order of magnitude more money than Amtrak has ever had in its life.)
- mst 5y ago"Not having a system where trains can pass each other usefully" is, from a european perspective, exceedingly strange.
- bobthepanda 5y agoThere are four tracks, but they are shared by local commuter services, rapid commuter services, intercity regional services, and the actual high speed trains. To put this in context, by the time suburban development started in earnest in the US, the private railroads were in free-fall after the war. It took until the '70s for Amtrak to put the (passenger) divisions of said railroads out of their misery, and Nixon did not anticipate Amtrak surviving the decade; Amtrak was supposed to decline out of existence. It never quite did that, but it also never quite got back on its feet, and so now the passenger rails are quite lacking.
- Tsiklon 5y agoIn London on the main lines out of the main termini it's usually 4 tracks abreast with commuter services + stopping services taking one pair of tracks and express + intercity services taking the other pair for in and outbound services. High speed railways (greater than 250 km/h (155 mph)) are a different story usually running on bespoke track. Is that not the case in the Northeast Corridor?
- Redoubts 5y agoYeah they usually have to wait for Metro North CT trains to move on from commuter stations.