Acela 2164...excessively early the past couple days.

[brandon02852]

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT. I AM JUST REALLY SHOCKED THAT IS ALL

I railfan at Kingston (KIN) each day after work and watch Acela 2164 go by on its way to Providence (PVD). If on time, it goes by Kingston (milepost 158) approximately 20 minutes before it is scheduled to reach Providence.

Now with me, it is not uncommon to see 2164 get to Kingston two to three minutes ahead of schedule, but yesterday it arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule and today it arrived 19 minutes ahead of schedule!

I have never seen an Amtrak train be more than 5 minutes early for any stop, but 2164 is consistently being ridiculous amounts of time ahead of schedule.

Today I was at Kingston looking northbound waiting for 2173 to come (since it always comes before 2164) and heard 2164's engineer talking over 54/54 to dispatch (reporting his status at defect detector 154.3). I looked behind me (southbound) and saw it's headlight. I was immediately dumbfounded and still have no idea what the hell is going on with this train.

What is going on? Are they speed-testing it??? Are they trying to set NEC records?

EDIT: Go to Amtrak.com, click Status, type in train 2193 to New York Penn (NYP) on Friday, July 13th. It is estimated to be 20 minutes early. This is ridiculous.

 

[JayPea]

Gosh, we spend all our time complaining about late trains, and now here's a complaint about an early train!!! There's no pleasing some people! :lol: J/K

 

[Ispolkom]

As a patron of the Empire Builder, I can't say that I feel your pain. What is this "early train" you talk about?

 

[brandon02852]

Haha, I am not complaining, I am just shocked. It is extremely uncommon/non-existent...so why is it becoming so common as of late?

 

[PerRock]

As a patron of the Empire Builder, I can't say that I feel your pain. What is this "early train" you talk about?

Actually the first time I took the EB, we arrived in Portland 10mins early. Mind you that was about 10 years ago.

peter

 

[amamba]

66 is routinely 10-15 minutes early into PVD.

 

[the_traveler]

I was on the TE/SL eastbound a few years ago, and we arrived in Alpine, TX over 1 HOUR early. Because a train can not depart before it's scheduled departure time, we sat there and blocked 1 grade crossing completely, and the back of the almost blocked another - but there was enough room for vehicles to get by. So we enjoyed an unscheduled 1 hour smoke break in 95 degree heat!

 

[jis]

Haha, I am not complaining, I am just shocked. It is extremely uncommon/non-existent...so why is it becoming so common as of late?

Possibly because extra padding added to schedules for track work and bridge replacement work both on Amtrak and MNRR is not being totally eaten up by such. Specifically for east bound Acelas, this would possibly indicate that the Nan bridge replacement work is winding down and causing much less of a holdup among other things.

 

[brandon02852]

Haha, I am not complaining, I am just shocked. It is extremely uncommon/non-existent...so why is it becoming so common as of late?

Possibly because extra padding added to schedules for track work and bridge replacement work both on Amtrak and MNRR is not being totally eaten up by such. Specifically for east bound Acelas, this would possibly indicate that the Nan bridge replacement work is winding down and causing much less of a holdup among other things.

This makes sense. I live right near where they are doing lots of trackwork...I hear them on the scanner all the time recently.

This is in Davisville...a section of North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

 

[afigg]

Possibly because extra padding added to schedules for track work and bridge replacement work both on Amtrak and MNRR is not being totally eaten up by such. Specifically for east bound Acelas, this would possibly indicate that the Nan bridge replacement work is winding down and causing much less of a holdup among other things.

The Acela 2193 arrived at NYP 15 minutes early. It is shown as departing NHV on time, don't see a status entry for STM when it arrived or departed. So either 2193 ran 15 minutes faster between STM and NYP than the schedule or there was no one had brought tickets to board at STM and so 2193 left STM early? Made damn good time between NHV and NYP.

As for the new Niantic River bridge, saw this local news article about a problem with the new lift span. It is a 1/2" too low because the support structures have compressed. Oops. The new bridge will close for 2 days starting on Sunday night.

Edit: typo fix

 

[PRR 60]

If everything breaks just right, Acela can cover NYP-BOS in about 3hr 20min with the normal stops. Amtrak schedules about 3hr 40min to provide for schedule reliability. Northbound, PVD is a "L" stop, meaning it will pick up passengers but may leave early, and RTE and BBY are "D", discharge only stops. Of a train gets into PVD early, then it leaves early and likely gets to BOS early.

Acela is the most schedule-sensitve train service operated by Amtrak. It is 80% patronized by business travelers. Those types of travelers require on-time operation. In the early days, Amtrak was very aggressive with Acela scheduling, not very smart with Acela maintenance, and paid the price with a very bad reputation for on-time operation (ACELA = Amtrak Customers Expect Late Arrivals). On-time rates in the 60% range were not uncommon, with the culprits being both the aggressive schedule and poor equipment maintenace. Ridership dropped year-to-year for about four years. About 8 years ago Amtrak made several changes, including more conservative scheduling and a reliability-centered maintenance program. Over the last few years, Acela has consistently been over 90% on-time (14-minute tolerance). Climbing Acela ridership reflects a now well-earned reputation for reliability. One result of the conservative scheduling is that occasionally a train come close to the ideal trip and gets into BOS real early.

 

[PRR 60]

Possibly because extra padding added to schedules for track work and bridge replacement work both on Amtrak and MNRR is not being totally eaten up by such. Specifically for east bound Acelas, this would possibly indicate that the Nan bridge replacement work is winding down and causing much less of a holdup among other things.

The Acela 2913 arrived at NYP 15 minutes early. It is shown as departing NHV on time, don't see a status entry for STM when it arrived or departed. So either 2193 ran 15 minutes faster between STM and NYP than the schedule or there was no one had brought tickets to board at STM and so 2193 left STM early? Made damn good time between NHV and NYP.

As for the new Niantic River bridge, saw this local news article about a problem with the new lift span. It is a 1/2" too low because the support structures have compressed. Oops. The new bridge will close for 2 days starting on Sunday night.

Acela 2913?

All Acela's are 21XX (weekday) and 22XX (weekend). Trains with the last two numbers less than 50 are NYP-WAS trips, trains with the last two numbers 50 to less than 90 are BOS-WAS, and trips with the last two numbers 90 and higher are BOS-NYP trips.

 

[the_traveler]

2913 = Back To The Future?

 

[PRR 60]

I hesitate to add this, but I have recorded the BOS, NYP and WAS arrival times of every Acela train since February, 2001. That is something in the neighborhood of 150,000 arrivals over 11 years. I started doing it to measure Acela's reliability verses the air shuttles (and early on, Acela stunk), and now I do it because..., well I'm not really sure why. I guess I just hate to stop after 11 years.

I mentioned this to my son a few years ago (now age 29), and he said it was oddly comforting since it makes some of the stuff he does seem just slightly less strange. His quote, "now I know where I get it."

 

[afigg]

The Acela 2913 arrived at NYP 15 minutes early. It is shown as departing NHV on time, don't see a status entry for STM when it arrived or departed. So either 2193 ran 15 minutes faster between STM and NYP than the schedule or there was no one had brought tickets to board at STM and so 2193 left STM early? Made damn good time between NHV and NYP.

Acela 2913?

All Acela's are 21XX (weekday) and 22XX (weekend). Trains with the last two numbers less than 50 are NYP-WAS trips, trains with the last two numbers 50 to less than 90 are BOS-WAS, and trips with the last two numbers 90 and higher are BOS-NYP trips.

I fixed the typo. In my defense, I had the correct number twice in my paragraph and the transposed number once. Go with the 2 out of 3.

 

[gatelouse]

PRR, love the anecdote about your son. I'm waiting for the day when one of mine has the same epiphany.

The Acela 2193 we've been discussing is among the most heavily padded BOS-NYP runs around. It routinely arrives 15 early. This run terminates in NYP, so there's no penalty for arriving early. A through train to WAS needs to be scheduled a bit more aggressively, or the scheduled run time through NYP would grow unacceptably high.

 

[Acela150]

(ACELA = Amtrak Customers Expect Late Arrivals).

Great breakdown of Acela.. Back when AE first started I believe the schedule called for the run between NYP-NWK to be less then 10 minutes. For instance departed NYP 6 AM and would scheduled to depart NWK at 610 AM. Which would mean it would have to arrive at least by 609. But now they give much more time. I think it's about 13-15 minutes depending by train. Not 100% sure though. But that sounds about right. Maybe a couple minutes more.

I should add that I've been on 2158, 2160, and 2164 on days where they've run as early as 10 minutes early into RTE. I have only been late on AE once in the past 5 years. That was by 15 minutes due to heavy snow in New England that was just starting to fall when we left NYP and picked up as we went trekked our way Northeast.

I was on the first runs of AE going north and south. IIRC they were late due to the awful padding. 2175 was late at NYP and the trailing PC 2020 had some type of leak and water was running into the FC car vestibule. A crew was "waiting" at NYP to "fix it". Get there. No one there. A conductor hopped down and kicked some kind of hose that was making noise and presto it was fixed with out need of the crew that was "waiting". The set was accepted I believe two months before hand. But yet they had a set that had been through testing and acceptance months before hand. I believe it was the train set that has PC's 2030 and 2031.

 

[jis]

It should also be noted that Acelas and everything else will actually get something like 5 mins or more additional padding in NJ as work starts up on the New Brunswick - Trenton segment for track and catenary upgrade for 160mph, and also as they start taking apart A interlocking in Penn Station to put the I Ladder extension in.