Acela discussion

[Anderson]

Amtrak already carries 75% of NY-WAS air+rail traffic, even with the current "slow" schedules. You'll never eliminate all NY-WAS air traffic, because some people are flying to make connecting flights, or maybe their final destination is near the airport. Where they need to speed up the service is NY - BOS, and the first thing they need to do is get consistent 70 mph service between New Haven and New Rochelle, but that will require the cooperation of Metro North and the State of Connecticut. No maglevs needed.

At the time, DCA-LGA on AA (IIRC) still ran close to hourly. I recall it being a big deal when they cut one midday frequency.

[I'm also not sure if that 75% included onward connections on either side, but connecting traffic only needs 3-5x/day, not hourly service. It's where the market is /now/, but it wasn't there /then/. Also, killing the shuttle service would have given Amtrak more pricing pressure on the Acela side.]

 

[Acela150]

As of this afternoon (2/20) TS 8 is undergoing COT&S with the 6 passenger cars in Bear and the two Power Cars (2014/2019) in Wilmington. Also, TS 4 is one of the first trainsets that was semi-retired. The power cars (2001/2003) are in Wilmington for work.

TS 8 is wrapping up its COT&S work. And TS 4 won’t be coming back. Someone stirred that rumor to me.

 

[trainsupercommuter]

I was checking out the times on the Acela 2190 on railrat. Looking here, it is dwelling for over 15 minutes at New Haven. That seems like a very long time, if it only stopped for 3 minutes, it could make it to Boston at 8:45-8:50 and let people get to the office by the start of business.

Anyone know why it is dwelling so long, are there scheduling problems that prevent it from leaving earlier?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I was checking out the times on the Acela 2190 on railrat. Looking here, it is dwelling for over 15 minutes at New Haven. That seems like a very long time, if it only stopped for 3 minutes, it could make it to Boston at 8:45-8:50 and let people get to the office by the start of business.

Anyone know why it is dwelling so long, are there scheduling problems that prevent it from leaving earlier? View attachment 36394

This shows that it arrived early at NHV, so it has to wait till it's scheduled departure time.

Below is it's scheduled arrival and departure times
6:51a | 6:53a - New Haven, CT - Union Station (NHV)

 

[OBS]

I was checking out the times on the Acela 2190 on railrat. Looking here, it is dwelling for over 15 minutes at New Haven. That seems like a very long time, if it only stopped for 3 minutes, it could make it to Boston at 8:45-8:50 and let people get to the office by the start of business.

Anyone know why it is dwelling so long, are there scheduling problems that prevent it from leaving earlier? View attachment 36394

In terms of arriving earlier, you are only looking at one part of the equation. There are a large number of MBTA commuter trains arriving into Bos during that time frame, so it has to fit into the window that was scheduled amongst the commuter traffic operating between PVD and Bos.

 

[trainsupercommuter]

This shows that it arrived early at NHV, so it has to wait till it's scheduled departure time.

Below is it's scheduled arrival and departure times
6:51a | 6:53a - New Haven, CT - Union Station (NHV)

I’ve checked a few days and it seems to dwell for 10-15 minutes everyday. So the schedule is far over padded for STM-NHV.

 

[Anderson]

I’ve checked a few days and it seems to dwell for 10-15 minutes everyday. So the schedule is far over padded for STM-NHV.

It's a good question whether that's an Amtrak-induced thing or if MNRR insists on it.

 

[trainsupercommuter]

Here’s the next day. Getting there at 6:39 but it’s scheduled departure is all the way at 6:53, 15 minutes later.

I agree that maybe this has something to do with MBTA schedules or bridge lowering.