eolesen wrote: ↑Sun Jan 09, 2022 3:03 pm
John_Perkowski wrote:
I submit that if less than 20% of the miles in the Corridor are rated at Class 7 or greater, buying Avelia will have been an exercise in waste. The better use of money would have been to buy parcels of land that permit, with construction of new track alignments, upgrades of FRA classification for worked segments.
Yep. They could have been better off with that type of investment and simply running express services with Sprinters at a consistent 125mph... there's a lot to be said for having a standardized fleet.
How quickly we forget the impact on market share for the NEC on the introduction of Acela services???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela
"The high-speed operation occurs mostly along the 226 mi (364 km) route from Pennsylvania Station in New York City to Union Station in Washington, D.C., with a fastest scheduled time of 2 hours and 45 minutes and an average speed of 82.2 mph (132.3 km/h), including time spent at intermediate stops. Over this route, Acela and the Northeast Regional service captured a 75% share of air/train commuters between New York and Washington in 2011, up from 37% in 2000."
That's a doubling of the market share south of NYC.
"By 2005, Amtrak's share of the common-carrier market between New York and Boston had reached 40%, from 18% pre-Acela."
Again, a doubling of the market share north of NYC.
"Acela carried more than 3.4 million passengers in fiscal year 2016; second only to the slower and less expensive Northeast Regional, which had over 8 million passengers in FY 2016. Its 2016 revenue of US$585 million was 25% of Amtrak's total."
Just as a reminder, Amtrak ridership per pandemic in 2019 was around 33 million passengers nationally.
Just think about it, 10% of the national ridership earns 25% of all Amtrak earnings.
IMHO, Acela has been a total success! Why do you guys and girls wish to eliminate it?
