faster Downeaster speed

Just heard on the 11pm Channel 6 (Portland, Maine) news that there will be an announcement tomorrow (featuring Maine governor John Baldacci and "officials" from Guilford) that the Downeaster speed will finally be raised to 79 MPH on portions of the Boston-Portland route. The news report said that the higher speed will be phased in beginning in August.

ITs about time. Its sad that a greyhound bus can beat the train there. No wonder anyone rides it.

The problem there is not the train speed but the fact that Greyhound is not adhering to any speed limit.

Problem? What problem? For one thing, the bus and the train are directly comparable only if one is traveling endpoint to endpoint.

Concord's service is nonstop between Boston and Portland. Greyhound's affiliate Vermont Transit also serves the Boston-Portland segment, but it makes at most 3 stops--only one of which, Wells, duplicates the Downeaster. Most runs are nonstop.

As for the speedup, we've read announcements before. Let's wait for the timetable and read that.

AS A WORKING JOURNALIST...THIS IS AN ARTICLE THAT I GOT DIRECTLY FROM THE AP


(Portland-AP) -- Operators of Amtrak's Downeaster will suspend service during the week of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
John Englert from the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority says security precautions were proving to be burdensome. But in the end, he says it seemed like few people planned to be traveling to Boston anyway.
Workers will use the time during the event from July 26th to the 29th to make rail improvements as the train prepares for a speed increase.
The rail authority and the owner of 77 miles of track reached an agreement to boost speeds on August first. The train's speed will go up along most of the line, and will reach 79 miles per hour for a total of four miles.
The change will shave five to ten minutes off the trip between Portland and Boston. The trip time will be further shortened as the speed increases to 79 miles per hour along a 30-mile stretch in the fall of next year.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

DutchRailnut wrote:The problem there is not the train speed but the fact that Greyhound is not adhering to any speed limit.

I dont know about Maine but the SLOWEST buses on the New Jersey Turnpike are Greyhounds. NJ Transit, MTA (Staten Island express), Coach USA and Academy commuter buses routinely blow past them.

IMO, that train is slow!!!

I dont know about Maine but the SLOWEST buses on the New Jersey Turnpike are Greyhounds. NJ Transit, MTA (Staten Island express), Coach USA and Academy commuter buses routinely blow past them.[/quote]

And some of them [Greyhound] tear off past me -- depends very much upon the driver.

Up where I am living (northeast PA), I have observed Greyhound buses operating at speeds well above 80 mph. The interstate highways do not have "signaling sytems" or "automatic bus control" to slow the bus down to the posted speed limits. Imagine how deep in the hole Greyhound would have to be if they had to install "GCSES" (Greyhound Civil Speed Enforcement System) on their buses?

"The trip time will be further
shortened as the speed increases to 79 miles per hour along a 30-mile stretch in the fall of next year."

Why is this taking another year-plus to implement? Wasn't the trackwork that was completed two years ago intended to bring the line up to 79 mph standards where appropriate? I know Guilford took exception and dragged things out with litigation, but what else (beyond lengthening crossing circuits) has to be done now?

In addition to longer crossing circuits, this may possibly result in the need
to relocate a few signals although I have not ridden the head end on that
line in over 40 years. In some cases a distant signal is too close to a
home signal to permit higher speeds.
Another item, I don't know about the rest of the country but here in
Florida, Greyhound is about the fastest thing on the road with little or no
regard for posted speed limits. I just watch them go by me and I am
going a good 70, if they end up in a ditch, well! at least I am not on that
bus to join them. I remember back in the 1970's and early 1980's when I
was working freight on the Conrail River Line, we would often deadhead
back to New Jersey by Greyhound as there was much more bus service at
the time and it was easier getting back to New Jersey. At that time, the
drivers were very professional and good, not today though. I was forced
to use Greyhound a couple of years ago from Richmond to Washington
due to a problem affecting Amtrak in that area and I could see why the
bus is the least desirable way of any to travel other than walking.
One way to cut their speeds would be for the "feds" to require governors
on every bus limiting their speed to 70 MPH or less at all times. 65 might
be even better.
Back on subject, I hope that this might result in Amtrak and Guilford
actually getting along better in doing the job intended for both to do.
Noel Weaver

thats always a good thing, raising the speed :D , now all they have to do is fix the catenary and tracks in CT and RI to get Acela's speed higher

Nothing wrong with the catenary or tracks in RI, or anywhere east of New Haven for that matter. West of New Haven, it's up to Metro North.

MBTA F40PH-2C 1050
Just for your info even when the Catenary is fixed the sped WIL NOT go up.
The speed restrictions are for curvature and objects like bridges.
For MNCR to be able to run ACELA's faster the signal system needs to be upgraded to ACESS, costing up to $100K per pair of cars plus a new signal infrastructure.

>>At that time, the drivers were very professional and good, not today though.<<

In 1963 as a British student I spent three months in the US with a Greyhound ticket covering the whole country. I was really impressed with Greyhound (which at that time had competition from Continental Trailways). The drivers seemed competent and everything worked smoothly. I crossed from Coast to Coast in both directions.

In January last year I was with my wife in Florida and we took Greyhound for a short trip which required a change at Lake Wales for another bus to Winterhaven. My wife showed our tickets to the driver and he assured her we did not need to change, so we stayed on the bus. I was snoozing a bit and woke up to look at the shadows which showed we were going south instead of north to Winterhaven. This was confirmed when we drew into West Palm Beach (combined bus and rail station). The driver had 'read' the ticket as Fort Worth! I did wonder at the time if he was in fact literate.

However, there was a good outcome to this. My wife started arguing with the Greyhound agent who eventually admitted liability and he gave as Amtrak tickets to Winterhaven. And I got a good look at the Miami area local trains.

I greatly enjoyed the train trip (which was on time) in the Silver something.

I think Greyhound is in a poor way these days, but I also notice that the buses are very poorly used, which is the cause. And they now have a monopoly for long distance travel (if I am wrong there, please let me know).

Lake Worth vice Lake Wales, right?

Greyhound is the sole surviving national bus carrier. There are still lots of bus carriers that provide intercity service, some on rather long routes. Trailways still exists, though these days it's a loose federation of independent operators.

As for health, Greyhound's ridership and revenue rose about 60% in the period 1994-2001. In 2001 Greyhound hit $1 billion in revenue and 25 million riders. Both figures declined in 2002. Those are the latest figures available at
http://www.greyhound.com

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. As the standup comedians say, tough room.