Acela PVD to BOS

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BLOND37

OBS Chief
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
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568
i need to go to boston next week for the day... never rode on the acela before... aside from bragging rights (hahah) any good reason why i would want to take the acela over regular amtrak or the MBTA commuter rail..?
 
does it feel like U are going 150mph?
Only if you look out the window. The ride is pretty smooth at that point, aside from the nifty tilting.
Looking out the window may be just the issue. For me, 150 mph is just too fast to see the scenery. 125 is MUCH more civilized and "leisurely". I'd take the Acela again only if I missed my Regional and needed to catch up in a hurry.

But I suppose everyone should try it Once.
 
But I suppose everyone should try it Once.
I concur!

Take Acela there and a Regional home. Then you get the best of both worlds.

(Or if you've taken Regional before and can afford to do this, do Acela First on the way there and then Acela Business on the way back for a comparison of the two products. Or I suppose you could do the reverse [business there and First home] and perhaps then get a nice dinner on Acela...)
 
You would not be going 150 mph between providence and Boston anyway. The 150 mph segment is South/west or Providence on the way to New Have. I think the top speed between boston and Providence is 130 mph.
 
You would not be going 150 mph between providence and Boston anyway. The 150 mph segment is South/west or Providence on the way to New Have. I think the top speed between boston and Providence is 130 mph.
No, I'm almost 100% that the original 15 mile segment of 150 MPH running is north of Providence. They have subsequently expanded the amount of 150 mph territory, but a significant amount is north of Providence.
 
Attleboro, MA. and Mansfield, MA. MBTA stations are both located in 150 mph territory for both directions. In riding the Acela however, I have never recorded a GPS log over 144 mph in Massachusetts. I have recorded 151 mph on the Rhode Island section.
 
You would not be going 150 mph between providence and Boston anyway. The 150 mph segment is South/west or Providence on the way to New Have. I think the top speed between boston and Providence is 130 mph.
You will ride in 150 mph territory in MA. As for whether you will actually go 150 mph or not, that is a separate matter depending on what is going on in that area that day and that point in time, in terms of TSRs, congestion etc.
 
Attleboro, MA. and Mansfield, MA. MBTA stations are both located in 150 mph territory for both directions. In riding the Acela however, I have never recorded a GPS log over 144 mph in Massachusetts. I have recorded 151 mph on the Rhode Island section.
If you stand at the edge of the platform at Attleboro or Mansfield while the Acela is whizzing by, does it blow you over? :)
 
Attleboro, MA. and Mansfield, MA. MBTA stations are both located in 150 mph territory for both directions. In riding the Acela however, I have never recorded a GPS log over 144 mph in Massachusetts. I have recorded 151 mph on the Rhode Island section.
If you stand at the edge of the platform at Attleboro or Mansfield while the Acela is whizzing by, does it blow you over? :)
Almost. I did it once on a trip to Boston (took MBTA commuter rail out to the Mansfield station) and it was one of the most incredible forces I've ever felt. And I was standing a good 10-15 feet from the edge of the platform. I was filming the whole thing my laptop's built in camera, and had placed the laptop on top of a trashcan about 10 feet from the edge of the platform. The force of the passing train literally picked up the laptop and almost tossed it off the trashcan before I grabbed it and held it down.
 
Attleboro, MA. and Mansfield, MA. MBTA stations are both located in 150 mph territory for both directions. In riding the Acela however, I have never recorded a GPS log over 144 mph in Massachusetts. I have recorded 151 mph on the Rhode Island section.
If you stand at the edge of the platform at Attleboro or Mansfield while the Acela is whizzing by, does it blow you over? :)
It sure gets your attention.First timers on the platform usually say "Holy s---" !!!

I have a few 5-8 second videos(6Mb) I can send by email to those with broadband cable.Send a PM.
 
130, 150 MPH.. whats 20mph among friends..LOL.. fastest i ever been has been whatever NEC Reg does from PVD to NYC... thats what 65? 70?

is the acela like on star trek when they go into warp speed...LOL
 
130, 150 MPH.. whats 20mph among friends..LOL.. fastest i ever been has been whatever NEC Reg does from PVD to NYC... thats what 65? 70?
Regional between PVD and NYP max speed in some sections would be 125mph.

The fastest I have been on a train is 200mph on TGV Est (the recently inaugurated line from Paris to Baudrecourt) to Nancy in France. And compared to that everything else seems quite pokey ;)

Those who have been on the Shanghai Airport Maglev, which travels a bit faster also have similar feelings about other trains :)
 
The fastest I have been on a train is 200mph on TGV Est (the recently inaugurated line from Paris to Baudrecourt) to Nancy in France. And compared to that everything else seems quite pokey ;)
Likewise, for me it was probably about 200mph. It was on the TGV from Paris to Poitiers, in 1997. If someone here knows more about what equipment would have been running then, they may know more precisely what speed it would have run for most of its journey. All I remember about what I saw out the windows is that it was so fast that I didn't have a nice view of the countryside. It was more like looking out the window of an airplane accelerating on the runway in the seconds before actually leaving the ground (unsurprisingly; the speeds are comparable): it's nifty to see stuff whizzing by so quickly, but it's almost impossible to focus on anything long enough to actually look at it. Perhaps that effect was even more pronounced on the TGV than on the Acela, but since this was twelve years ago for me, I can't really compare them.

I also remember periodic tunnels on the TGV where I suppose the idea was to keep curves to an absolute minimum and eliminate all grades to reduce need for any accelerating or braking--it's not as if France is mountainous in that area, just hilly, and I imagine with non-high-speed rail in America the rails would have just followed a route that goes partly around them, partly up and over and down again. Entering and leaving tunnels at that speed was sort of ear-popping. (I remember we discussed the physics of why that was so somewhere on this board a while back.)

I don't notice a huge difference between 125mph max-speed on an Amtrak Regional and 150mph max-speed on an Acela--I barely notice any difference at all, probably because in neither case are we going over even 120mph for very long stretches, so the speeds each train is traveling are really quite comparable for almost all of their routes and I only happen to notice "oh, we're going a little faster than usual!" if I happen to look out the window when we're in a 150 stretch (which I tend to notice only by feel when we tilt, not by sight when the scenery outside "speeds up"). That's a minor difference when comparing the Regional experience to the Acela experience, compared to the differences in window size, interior layout, brightness and comfort, vestibule design (wow, those Acela vestibules are cool, I just can't say that enough times).

But there was an enormous difference between going 150mph briefly on an Acela and traveling on the TGV, and I think I would have noticed that difference regardless of the TGV's actual top speed. Even if the TGV were topped out at 150mph, it would be maintaining that speed for an hour at a stretch rather than perhaps ten minutes, and that in itself is a completely different experience than the Acela. That the TGV is traveling even faster than 150mph--maybe as much as 30% more--is just gravy. And the tunnels were even more gravy, really making the experience of high-speed even more apparent by pointing out "we are going so fast we have to go straight ahead no matter what the terrain looks like!", moreso than the Acela's tilting.

It's not just that compared to the TGV everything in America seems "pokey"; for me it's also that compared to the TGV (ICE, Thalys, etc) everything else is a completely different experience. It's not a difference between "a regular roller-coaster and a faster roller-coaster"; it's more like the difference between "the fastest teacups ride you can possibly imagine, a really really really really fast teacups ride ... and a roller-coaster, any roller-coaster, even a slow one". Everything in America is just "conventional rail", once you've ridden real "high-speed rail".
 
The fastest I have been on a train is 200mph on TGV Est (the recently inaugurated line from Paris to Baudrecourt) to Nancy in France. And compared to that everything else seems quite pokey ;)
Likewise, for me it was probably about 200mph. It was on the TGV from Paris to Poitiers, in 1997.
Paris Montparnasse to Poitiers on the LGV portion (LGV Atlantique south branch Chatillon - Courtalain - St. Pierre-des-Corpes) would have been 186mph. The only 200 mph LGV at present is the LGV Est which went into service last year.

Your train would have run pretty close to 186mph most of the length of the LGV (except where it branches off at Courtalain where it would have slowed down to possibly 150 or 140mph for the high speed switch, and then dropped down to 220kph/~140mph on the upgraded classic line St.Pierre-des-Corpes to Poitiers. The service to Bordeaux I believe slows down even further south of Poitiers to 200kph/125mph.
 
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Attleboro, MA. and Mansfield, MA. MBTA stations are both located in 150 mph territory for both directions. In riding the Acela however, I have never recorded a GPS log over 144 mph in Massachusetts. I have recorded 151 mph on the Rhode Island section.
If you stand at the edge of the platform at Attleboro or Mansfield while the Acela is whizzing by, does it blow you over? :)
48 years ago that was my introduction to the GG-1 in Haddon Heights NJ, Beautiful in Tuscan, 5 gold stripes, and the "sing" of the Catanery, no clue as to the number but like my Sig, below

Aloha

BW: it was nly 100mph, but when your 6 who cares. :p
 
130, 150 MPH.. whats 20mph among friends..LOL.. fastest i ever been has been whatever NEC Reg does from PVD to NYC... thats what 65? 70?
Regional between PVD and NYP max speed in some sections would be 125mph.

The fastest I have been on a train is 200mph on TGV Est (the recently inaugurated line from Paris to Baudrecourt) to Nancy in France. And compared to that everything else seems quite pokey ;)

Those who have been on the Shanghai Airport Maglev, which travels a bit faster also have similar feelings about other trains :)

OMG you rode on the TGV.. i'm jealous!
 
In some respects the 150mph on Amtrak seems faster than the 186mph on the Eurostar. The Acela ride is not as smooth and gives a greater sensation of speed. Plus, as jis said, you go 186 for long durations on the TGV lines and the high-speed line in England. On Acela you go 150 for just a few minutes of the trip. So, with Acela, the 150 seems unusually fast, while on Eurostar/TGV the 186 seems routine.
 
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