Why not more focus on NYP-BOS?

As an infrequent commuter between NYC and Boston, I wonder why Amtrak isn't focusing more on incremental improvements to that route.

From a business perspective, if 25% of Amtrak's revenues are from Acelas, and 25% are from Northeast Regionals, then I'd think that a focus on improving trip times on those two routes, and focusing on expanding market share in areas served by those routes, would come before nearly every other priority. The NYP-BOS portion of those routes seems to be underutilized, with lots of slow areas and relatively infrequent service (compared to NYP-WAS).

Why doesn't Amtrak (1) focus on reducing Acela trip times between NYP and BOS to 3 hours and (2) increasing service quality and frequency?

I know that there are some pie-in-the-sky plans to have NYP-BOS trips of under 2 hours, with a new right-of-way built, but I doubt they'll occur. Getting Acelas back down to 3:20 trip times, and even 3 hours, seem realistic and could significantly improve Amtrak's ridership and bottom line.

Thoughts?

$$$$$$. Amtrak doesn't have enough to keep what it has in good repair.

Lee

Why doesn't Amtrak (1) focus on reducing Acela trip times between NYP and BOS to 3 hours and (2) increasing service quality and frequency?

The main limiting factor for Amtrak timing between New York and Boston is Metro North territory, which is not only congested with far more train movements than ever before in its history but also constrained by long term track closures necessitated by MN's ongoing reconstruction of aging NH-era bridges. There is no room for Amtrak trains to go any faster amid MN's hundreds of daily movements and that's not going to change anytime soon. East of New Haven, the Shore Line is predominantly high speed territory, but there are physical restrictions on speed in the New London-Mystic stretch and through Providence that won't disappear without whole new rights-of-way. Plus, as Mr. Mikado notes, Amtrak's capital improvement funding is limited. And as far as service frequency, we basically have at least a train an hour to New York throughout the day, which rivals frequency anywhere else in Amtrak's system except New York-Washington. Given that Boston-New York will never be as big a market as New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington, that seems sufficient to me.

Amtrak owns only 58 percent of this corridor. Not only are the Metro-North portions owned by the New York MTA in NY state and by Connecticut DOT in CT, but the state of Massachusetts owns its portion.

The matter with the Metro-North portion is not necessarily congestion, but signaling and track classes. Also, there was talk in the past of reticence on Metro-North's part to allow active tilt operation of the Acelas; I do not know if this applied to the LRC tests (those cars were/are 10' 5" wide).

A little improvement in the works.

The Harold Interlocking bypass in Sunnyside Yards, to let trains from Penn Station and the East River tunnels to connect to the Hells Gate Bridge, is a Stimulus project intended, at least when announced, to cut 3 minutes off the trip. Alas, the new tracks have to get thru the East Side Access Project bringing LIRR trains near Grand Central, itself a mega-monster piece of work. There have been and will be delays. But Stimulus money has a deadline, Sept of next year, finish it or go back to Congress to beg for an extension -- and good luck with that. (If it was FY2010 money, there's no deadline, so expect still further delays.)

Meanwhile, the state of Connecticut is putting up a lot of money to rebuild one more bridge. I don't think work has begun, but when finished, save a minute or two.

The lack of frequencies is due to maritime law giving precedence to ships over trains in navigable waters, like harbors and river mouths. So Amtrak and the authorities made a deal that instead of opening bridges every time a ship came along, it can run a limited number of trains hourly. I don't expect much can change about that. By the time you could rebuild all the bridges to be 3 feet higher, to let more boats pass under, the sea level will have risen 3 feet more.

The Acela IIs will have more cars in each trainset, and so, much more capacity. They're working hard on that multi-Billion order. God knows they have to get it right.

Restoring trains to the Inland Route -- New Haven-Hartford-Springfield-Worcester-Boston -- would allow more Regionals frequencies NY-BOS. They'd probably take a little more time than the Coastal Route, but tweaking the pricing on the two routes could make the Inland trains quite competitive. Here lots of work is underway, but piecemeal. New Haven-Hartford is all ripped up but it will soon be much better, faster. Planning and permitting for Hartford-Springfield is finished or almost so; needs funds. At the other end, MBTA took over trackage out to Worcester and has been steadily improving the speed and quality on those trains (with a spillover benefit to the Lake Shore Ltd and future Inland trains). Too many hills and curves left between Worcester and Springfield, but working from the two ends, they'll get to that in due time.

SouthernRailway wrote: Why doesn't Amtrak (1) focus on reducing Acela trip times between NYP and BOS to 3 hours and (2) increasing service quality and frequency?

I know that there are some pie-in-the-sky plans to have NYP-BOS trips of under 2 hours, with a new right-of-way built, but I doubt they'll occur. Getting Acelas back down to 3:20 trip times, and even 3 hours, seem realistic and could significantly improve Amtrak's ridership and bottom line.

There are plans to reduce the NYP-BOS trip times and to increase the number of daily trains Amtrak can operate over the Shore Line East. The trip time goal as of a few years ago was to reduce the Acela times to 3 hours and 8 minutes. The major stumbling block as already discussed is the Metro-North New Haven Line. The NYP-BOS trip times got slower in the past several years primarily due to all the track maintenance problems that were found on the NHV line after the MNRR derailment and collision.

There are some improvement projects in the works. CTDOT is supposed to finally complete the catenary replacement and upgrade to constant tension catenary project on the NHV line sometime in 2017. That will return various track segments that have been out for catenary work to service. CT has been funding upgrades and adding catenary for the stations on the Shore Line East service which should improve traffic flow for the Amtrak trains passing through. The Kingston station project to install high level platforms and a 3rd track is also slated to be completed in 2017. That will remove a delay point for both the Regionals stopping at Kingston and the Acelas passing the station. How much these particular projects will trim trip times, don't know.

Amtrak has an engineering and design study underway on replacing the CT River bridge the last I saw on it. The challenge is where the $300 million or whatever the new CT River bridge will cost will come from. CT lined up the funds and will replace the movable Walk bridge in Norwalk after 2 major breakdowns of the bridge, so one of the 4 movable bridges on the NHV line that needs to be replaced or rebuilt will be fixed in the next 4-5 years. However, the Walk bridge replacement project will cut the NHV down to 2 tracks for an extended period while the new bridge is being built, so there will be a chokepoint for the Amtrak through trains for some time.

Once the Walk bridge is replaced, there will 3 remaining major bridge replacement/rebuild projects on the NHV line that could take place through the 2030s, any of which will likely result in delays during construction. Gov. Malloy of CT has proposed an extensive improvement program for the NHV line for faster trip times for the commuter trains and increased service frequencies which will also benefit Amtrak service, but those projects will require a lot of money and time.

Thanks for the feedback.

I am astonished at the condition of the NHV-NYP line, considering that (1) it's the most heavily-used passenger rail line in North America and (2) it's in a largely upper-income area--meaning that slews of affluent people use the line. I'd think that they'd be demanding significant improvements in trip times since it would make their daily commutes better. Doesn't the UK have a 125-mph commuter line? If such a thing exists, I'd think that the residents of Fairfield County would demand the same.

125MPH is not gonna do anything for MN. Most MN trains run in Local mode so 125MPH will not save any real time. Sure there some express and some area they can get some speed up . There is also no incesntive for MN to increase speed

I don't know of any place between New Haven and New Rochelle where any train could safely and legally travel at 125 MPH or probably even 110 MPH for that matter. There are too many restrictive bridges and especially curves. The section of railroad between New Haven and New York simply has as many trains as it can adequately handle. The signal system is inadequate as well for the type of operation that occurs here as well. Removing the fourth track between New Haven and Devon was a blunder of classic proportions and fortunately some of that track has been put back. Connecticut needs to get their act together and spend their money wisely, something that has been at least somewhat lacking of late.
Noel Weaver

SouthernRailway wrote:(2) it's in a largely upper-income area--meaning that slews of affluent people use the line.

Affluence and low support for mass transit is somewhat common. Don't know how it works in that area,

ebtmikado wrote:

SouthernRailway wrote:. . . I wonder why Amtrak isn't focusing more on incremental improvements . . .
Why doesn't Amtrak focus on (1) reducing Acela trip times between NYP and BOS to 3 hours and (2) increasing service quality and frequency?

$$$$$$. Amtrak doesn't have enough to keep what it has in good repair.
Lee

Lee nailed it. But we can flip his statement and it makes sense going the other way too. If Amtrak did have $$$$$$, perhaps after a nuclear tempter tantrum in the Middle East sent gas prices soaring, or if Congress just dribbled $ out, the best place to spend $ is NYC-D.C.

We've discussed a few of the ready opportunities NYC-BOS, and there aren't many easy ones. But going south, it's an orchard full of low-hanging fruit.

The FRA seems to ramping up, getting the paperwork, permits, and plans ready to push ahead on the new Baltimore Tunnels. The 21st-century tunnels will save 2 minutes 30 seconds for all Acelas and Regionals and many MARCs. For an estimated $4 Billion. Then a lot of culverts n stuff and two big bridges, one over the Susquehanna. Not sure there's an estimate for that yet, but let's say total $4 Billion again, and hope to save 2 minutes 30 seconds or more. Lessee. Double tracking, or is it triple-?, for many miles in Maryland.

Undercutting the existing tracks (all) of the NEC somewhat the worse for wear. Wasn't there some tweaking around Newark, DE, supposed to save half a minute or more? If that's finished yet, I missed the ribbon cutting. Catenary and other upgrades up and into New Jersey. More undercutting and assorted small bridge and culvert repairs all the way to a new Portal Bridge, to cost roughly a Billion, and save a minute or so. Then triple- or quadrupling- tracks thru swamps, oh, excuse me, meadowlands between Newark and the Hudson Tunnels, guess a Billion or more and save a couple of minutes.

Then new Hudson Tunnels, the big gorilla of the NEC upgrades, not low-hanging fruit. But at least some politicians seem to get it that the many Billions needs to be spent. The NYC-BOS segment, thank your lucky stars, has no spending need so urgent as the ancient and storm-damaged Hudson Tunnels.

But I don't have a good top of my head list of a few Billion $ projects each to cut 2 or 3 minutes off NYP-BOS.

What I believe this discussion has overlooked is that New England has "got what they got" more from the strong pro rail political pull from up that way than from anything such as passenger counts.

We're it not for that pull, I believe the electrification would have never occurred and Acela and Regionals would have terminated in New Haven. There would have been a service (How does Yankee Clipper Shuttle sound?), Diesel powered and with frequency of maybe "eight a day" (same as Empire or Keystone).

The intercity market is higher south of New York than it is north and east of New York BUT the commuter travel is heavier on the north and east side than it is on the Pennsylvania side by a wide margin. This is one reason for the congestion. For another thing the physical plant is older and has way more drawbridges than the PRR side has. The New Haven also went through a very dark period in the late 1950's and all through the 1960's with poor management and continuous money problems at least partly due to the bad management of the period. Today they are basically playing a game of "catch up" and it costs a fortune. The former New Haven between New York and New Haven is today probably the heaviest single commuter line in the country, maybe by a rather high margin. It is costing Connecticut a fortune to fix up things and as fast as they do that they find something else that had been neglected for a period of years. The State of Connecticut is not totally without blame here either, They spent needed funds where they didn't need to while letting things go where they had an urgent need.
Amtrak's service between New York and Boston is probably quite adequate for the existing business but it doesn't offer enough for expansion, more capacity is needed but it is not going to happen until the railroad is in a good state of repair between New Haven and New Rochelle.
Years ago on the New Haven we used to say that we had the power between New Haven and New York and we had the railroad between New Haven and Boston. We could only imagine what an electric motor could have done between New Haven and Boston. The FL-9's that McGinnis/Alpert got from EMD were generally dependable BUT it took a long, long time to get them up to anything close to track speed which was generally 79 MPH and by then we would have to put the brake on for a slowdown or station stop. Meantime the former PRR territory had AC motors more than capable of 90 and 100 MPH and could get up to those speeds while we would still be trying to get up to 79. The three southern New England states might not have nearly the population that the Washington corridor has but they have lots of people who use these trains on more or less a regular basis and this existed even back in the 1950's and 1960's when McGinnis and Alpert were using their energies in trying to get rid of them. The New Haven had a lot of overnight trains with sleepers on them, today's one overnight train between Boston and Washington Amtrak can't even spare a couple of sleepers for that train. This is a shame and a disgrace. It seems to me that they have basically given up on overnight travel in the corridor. Back in the days we had 172 and 173 between Washington and Boston with around ten sleepers a night each way plus 2,3 and 4 between New York, Providence and Boston with a bunch more of them. We also had sleepers between Boston and Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other points as well as some on the Springfield Line as well.
Today the daytime passenger service between New York and Boston is as good as it was during most of the New Haven Years after WW-II but it is all in the daytime or evening when apparently most folks want to travel.
Would an increase in trains be worthwhile between New York and Boston, probably but a lot has to happen especially west of New Haven before anything can happen here. As for the inland route via Springfield, FORGET IT, it is very unlikely to happen. Amtrak in its early years tried running a daily train over that line taking the place of a Shoreline train via Providence and it was more or less a dud taking hours longer and with much less ridership. The B & A will never be anything close to a fast railroad and CSX will resist any improvements for passenger service. Massachusetts does not have the money for something big to happen here either. I guess I have said enough for now on this.
Noel Weaver

I agree with what Noel says about the Inland Route. The problem there is the segment from Worcester to Springfield, which is CSX owned, mostly single track and a busy freight route. CSX would probably not allow any new frequencies without a significant investment in at least additional passing sidings if not double tracking. That is unlikely to happen for one pair of trains a day, unless the state of Massachusetts were to get interested in increased Boston -Worcester - Springfield service.

Back when the Inland Route still ran I took it a couple of times between Worcester and Philadelphia and it was mostly for convenience due to the one seat ride. It likely would have been faster to take MBTA to Boston then shore line to Philadelphia.

Jon

Mr. Weaver's post makes me depressed to think how much especially the overnight traffic has dropped.

It really is a shame there are no sleepers on that route any more.