Why is Boston-NY service so spotty?

Why are there so few Acelas between Boston and New York (in both directions), and why are the trains slower than they were originally?

I'm heading from NY to Boston for a daytrip. To be sure to make a noon meeting, I have to get a 6:20am Acela that takes 3 hours and 45 minutes--25 minutes longer than the original Acela schedule, years ago.

To return, there's a 5:20 Acela, but that's that latest one. I can't spend even the full afternoon there. I am sure that I saw a 6pm departure, but I checked again and it's not there.

So...why are there so few Acelas, and why are they so slow? It's tough to take the train to Boston for a daytrip.

Thanks.

SouthernRailway wrote:Why are there so few Acelas between Boston and New York (in both directions), and why are the trains slower than they were originally?

I'm heading from NY to Boston for a daytrip. To be sure to make a noon meeting, I have to get a 6:20am Acela that takes 3 hours and 45 minutes--25 minutes longer than the original Acela schedule, years ago.

To return, there's a 5:20 Acela, but that's that latest one. I can't spend even the full afternoon there. I am sure that I saw a 6pm departure, but I checked again and it's not there.

So...why are there so few Acelas, and why are they so slow? It's tough to take the train to Boston for a daytrip.

Thanks.

The route and track needs bringing up to date, but the people who control the money aren't willing to spend enough. Instead there is endless discussion but no decisions.

Amtrak does run other trains besides Acela between Boston and New York City. Boston sees 25 Amtrak trains a day leaving Boston, Houston averages less than 1 Amtrak train a day leaving Houston, and you're complaining about poor service? Lol
FYI, Greater Boston has a population of 4.5 million, Greater Houston has a population of 6.2 million.
That ole saying, "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile" comes to mind here.

electricron wrote:Amtrak does run other trains besides Acela between Boston and New York City. Boston sees 25 Amtrak trains a day leaving Boston, Houston averages less than 1 Amtrak train a day leaving Houston, and you're complaining about poor service? Lol
FYI, Greater Boston has a population of 4.5 million, Greater Houston has a population of 6.2 million.
That ole saying, "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile" comes to mind here.

On this route, I'm a business traveler.

I can take the Shuttle (upgradeable coach for $119 or first class for under $200), leaving at 8pm, and arriving by bedtime.

I can take an Acela, leaving at 5:20pm, cutting my day short.

Business travelers don't really take the Northeast Regional, especially for 4+ hours of travel time.

Now which is it?

electricron wrote:Amtrak does run other trains besides Acela between Boston and New York City. Boston sees 25 Amtrak trains a day leaving Boston, Houston averages less than 1 Amtrak train a day leaving Houston, and you're complaining about poor service? Lol
FYI, Greater Boston has a population of 4.5 million, Greater Houston has a population of 6.2 million.
That ole saying, "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile" comes to mind here.

Does Houston have one of the world's largest cities a few hours away? Intercity Rail service isn't about how big your city is. Its about how big your city and other cities to which one might travel are.

Ron et.al, I think what is overlooked is the political "pull" the Boston area has upon Amtrak affairs.

The Kennedys kept the New Haven afloat long after it otherwise would have been "belly up" thus forestalling the Penn Central debacle. Had somehow Dukakis been elected in '88, who knows there might even be real HSR along the Corridor today.

Had it not been for this caucus/coalition, I could well envision that NHV-BOS could simply been a 157 mile non electrified "feeder" to the Corridor, with same frequencies found on the Keystone, Empire, and Springfield Shuttle. How would "Yankee Clipper Service" have sounded for a name?

Lastly, I am certain that this same coalition "prompted" Amtrak that they restore through BOS-CHI service to the Lake Shore, for there so many operational parameters that simply raised costs far in excess of any additional revenue that has resulted from the change.

As any third grader knows, "clout" is what it's all about.

There's also physical limits on how many trains they can run NYP<->BOS. From New Rochelle to New Haven (the New Haven Line), Amtrak is the tenant and not the landlord; the New Haven Line is the busiest stretch of railroad in the country, and suffers from past deferred maintenance so it is not at full capacity. ConnDOT has said in the project information for their bridge and catenary replacement project that there will be continuous track outages for the next 20 years on the New Haven Line. The other issue which encompasses the entire route from NYP <-> BOS is movable bridges. There are dozens of movable bridges, which are century-old and unreliable, and only a few have been replaced. Some are in the process of being replaced, but many others are waiting for the billions required in funding to replace them. And, even when all are replaced and modernized, there is still a hard limit on how many trains can pass through because of various requirements of bridge opening times (by state legislature, by the US Coast Guard, by the Marine Trades Association..). For all of this, this is why Amtrak in their long term plans (by 2040) wants to build a completely new right of way between NYP and Providence by going inland, to completely circumvent the Shore Line for their Next-gen High Speed Rail program.

There are many places in this country when one can complain about Amtrak providing inadequate service, but Boston-New York is NOT one of them... geez, it's Amtrak's second-busiest route anywhere in terms of service levels. In addition to the numerous physical plant limitations that others have noted above, none of which can be fixed overnight, I would remind Mr. Southern Railway that not everybody on the NEC is a business traveler and not everybody can afford Acela fares. Amtrak basically alternates Acela and conventional equipment through the day out of Boston, and as a fairly regular rider myself who has to pay fares out of my own pocket I'm happy to ride Amfleet and spend 45 minutes -onger to get to New York while paying a significantly lower fare. Given its finite resources, I think that Amtrak does a good job of serving both the time-sensitive and price-sensitive travelers up here.

The last time I checked Boston - New York had 19 trains in each direction. This is more and better service than was offered 50 years ago by the old New Haven Railroad. The biggest obstacle to even more service is probably capacity problems between New Haven and New Rochelle. Unfortunately the leaders of Connecticut sat on their behinds when the fourth track was removed between New Haven and Milford quite a few years ago, it is partially back but it all needs to return. Unfortunately the small boat lobbies have been a hindrance to any further improvements east of New Haven again creating problems for Amtrak. Houston might not even have daily Amtrak service but it has more and better highways which I am sure came at a great cost, a huge airport or maybe even two such things. In addition the NEC has a huge concentration of smaller but very important stations where passenger service is both warranted and heavily used. Military facilities and colleges and universities are both heavy providers of railroad passengers, count them along the NEC both north and south of New York and you have a lot of them. Towns that would not even warrant a whistle stop in Texas are important sources of revenue for Amtrak and in many cases very important commuter stops as well. Let something very bad happen to any major highway around Houston and you can bet that congress would come to action but fast but portions of the Northeast Corridor are literally falling apart and nobody seems to really care. It is what it is.
Noel Weaver

YamaOfParadise wrote:...the New Haven Line is the busiest stretch of railroad in the country...

No it's not. The stretch where it merges with Harlem line is busier and the fiddly bit between Mott Haven and Grand Central is even busier when the trains from the Hudson Line merge in.
Woodside has a bit of traffic too.

There is going to be continued pressure on Amtrak to increase service to and from Boston along the NEC.
Boston is actually one of the nations fastest growing cities in terms of population, and it has become and even larger corporate employer in the past 10 years.
A number of tech firms (Yahoo, Google), and modern companies (Trip Advisor as an example)have either located their corporate HQ in Boston/Cambridge, or their East Coast Regional HQ offices.
Primark the department store from Ireland is not only opening their first US store in downtown Boston, they selected Boston as their US HQ city.

All this has created high demand for Boston transportation services including Amtrak.
Yet, as many of us know Amtrak is hamstrung with issues ranging from moveable bridge opening limits to an undersized South Station.
None if these operational issues can be solved overnight.

Lastly for those unaware of this growth in Boston, here is a good capsule.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cit ... opulation/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Ken

It all has to due with the various track projects that are occurring on the route. It is difficult to add trains with the limited capacity on the NHV line. Additionally, with major track outages and the various FRA emergency orders, the trains are moving at slower speeds through the remaining tracks.


That being said, Amtrak did add another round trip to ease congestion on Saturdays...which doesn't really help the business traveler.

Time to build HSR to Albany and then improve ALB-BOS trip times.

(honestly I still think ALB-BOS needs another train in each direction. But that's another discussion.)

New York - Boston is a different situation than Albany - Boston. You can get on a bus in Albany and be in Boston both faster and cheaper than by train. The train serves a very useful link between Boston and the west but not between Albany and Boston. CSX will not welcome any more trains on that line either and to put big bucks into improvements on that route would be a huge waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere in Massachusetts. Just because railfans like a ride for scenery, mountains or something else does not mean that the public will like the same ride for speed, comfort and economy.
Noel Weaver

The moveable bridges which can only be closed for limited amounts of time.