faster Downeaster speed

>>Across all modes, passenger transportation is a tough business. The British company Stagecoach (big motorcoach operator, operator of South West Trains and Island Line, 49% owner of Virgin Trains) entered the North America market in 1999 by buying the charter operator Coach USA for about $1.2 billion and promptly proceeded to lose its shirt. What did it get for that money? About 1% of the US bus market and a lot of angry shareholders.<<

Yes, Stagecoach lost a lot of money and had to sell their American operation. Didn't it include School buses?

(British companies seldom do well with companies they buy in the US. Cable and Wireless is another - painful to remember)

george matthews wrote:Stagecoach . . . had to sell their American operation.

Not exactly. Stagecoach is breaking up Coach USA and selling it off in pieces. The transit division went to First Transit, a U.S. subsidiary of First Group, based in . . . anybody? anybody?

What will Stagecoach end up with? According to a spokeman, "the revamped Coach USA will consist of 10 coach businesses, a body repair business and a charter booking business that now make up the Northeast region in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan areas and 11 coach businesses in the North Central region that covers such populated areas as Greater Chicago and Greater Pittsburgh."

Outstanding article on Stagecoach and Coach USA here

British companies seldom do well with companies they buy in the US.

C&W is a telecom. Its experience is not typical. Proof? British investors remain the No. 1 source of foreign investment here in the United States.

ohh DutchRailnut, i thought i read somewhere that if the catenary and track were fixed, the speeds might have gone up a little, not a whole lot though

This thread is about the Downeaster, not the part of the Northeast Corridor that used to be the Shore Line.

And what DRN means is that catenary upgrades are no guarantee of increased speeds on there. The catenary wires can be upgraded but speeds could remain the same. Only guarantee of speed increase is installation of ACSES on that part of the NEC, but that means all of Metro-North's fleet would have to get it installed...

This is off topic but I will add to the discussion, Metro-North between New
Haven and New Rochelle for the most part cannot handle really high
speed no matter what you do with the signals, simply too many curves,
drawbridges and other problems. The highest speed on this stretch is a
short stretch of 90 in the Mamaroneck which has always been the best
stretch of track between New Haven and New York.
There are some other areas where the speed could be increased by a
little bit if the overhead and bridges were repaired and up-graded. I do
not look for this to happen too soon, however.
Noel Weaver

My understanding is that the Downeaster hasn't really had much of an impact on the bus ridership between the two points. That means that the Downeaster has drawn in lots of NEW ridership and that bodes well for both operations. I doubt 15 minutes is going to increase ridership by 10% (as some articles have noted is an estimated ridership increase from speed), but it makes sense to make the travel time as short as possible.

OT: MTA Staten Island express services use equipment that is generally governed in the 58-65MPH range, so I find it hard to believe that they can run faster than Greyhound. The average commuter bus speed on I-95 in the Newark Airport area is about 75MPH.

Are the Maine State Police not as tough on speeders on the Maine Turnpike as...say...the Massachusetts State Police are for example on the Mass Pike?

The Maine state troopers are definitely tough on speeders... but there are fewer of them and they cover a larger geographical area.