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Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

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Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#11

Post by kylehotchkiss »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

I've found that looking at USA as a middle-income country with extremely wealthy regions helps me better understand our country. The supposed wealth doesn't seem relevant in the hollowed out towns between the coasts. It's generally not being sent or spent there in any meaningful way.

Much of the actual wealth is in the northeast corridor, where the Acela is improving the quality of their product, and in California, where Southern CA and the Bay Area both have fairly nice regional trains that go as fast as the right of way will let them. I think we've done OK connecting places that matter, and as flying continues to enshittify and people will choose rail for comfort.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#12

Post by idiomat9000 »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

The rivers are to good as mass good transport medium. They make goods transport bx rail economically unviable for the core country, leaving only a ring of economic routes.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#13

Post by dc396 »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

Yes, US rail is pathetic, at least for passenger travel. However, a quick search on Google Flights shows a one-way ticket from LA to DC costs $98.00 on Frontier via Atlanta (YMMV) so I don't think it's correct to say there isn't cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#14

Post by eqvinox »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #6
scienceman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess to account for any unfamiliarity from the operators (new systems, etc) and allowing more time to sort out any other kinks. (they also pad the schedules for old trains too -- this is to accommodate small slowdowns without causing cascading delays).

New trains: padded schedule Old trains: padded schedule So really, all train schedules are padded - which makes sense, you need buffers to absorb variance in performance to have reliable schedules.

> Old trains: padded schedule

No — Old trains: schedule based on experiences from having ran them for at least a year (i.e. all seasons)

New trains' buffers are larger because you don't know e.g. how shit the brakes are when you have tons of leaves on your rails. (Yes this is an actual thing¹.)

[¹ Ed.: in case anyone is incredulous at the leaves thing: https://www.groupe-sncf.com/en/group/behind-the-scenes/traff... ]

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#15

Post by legitster »

The B1M put together some good content on the particular infrastructure problems that affect the route: https://www.theb1m.com/video/northeast-corridor-baltimore-tu...

The route relies on some really old infrastructure, including single span bridges and tunnels that predate TBMs.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#16

Post by eqvinox »

idiomat9000 wrote: post #12
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

The rivers are to good as mass good transport medium. They make goods transport bx rail economically unviable for the core country, leaving only a ring of economic routes.

[Regardless of validity, which is questionable—]

Why are you bringing cargo into this? The argument was about passenger travel…

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#17

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

Most people don't want trains. Most places where people want trains have them (high density places).

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#18

Post by legitster »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

The area in question (Northeast) is about the only place in the US that matches the population density of the parts of Europe served by high-speed rail.

It's not a question of wealth but of efficiency. Even if you took every single meter of high speed rail that France has built in the last 50 years, you would barely cover 2/3 of the distance of a single line between New York and LA.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#19

Post by eqvinox »

docdeek wrote: post #7
octaane wrote: post #2

Important context buried at the bottom: "Passenger rail analysts said that it isn’t unusual for rail operators to pad their schedules when introducing new trains, especially if they will run alongside older ones. For example, during a rollout, a railroad might schedule more generous dwell time at stops, they said." Also, the new schedule is only about 15 mins longer than the old one...this is a big nothingburger.

You’re right on this point, but my read of the article was that you can buy the fastest trains in the world but if your infrastructure is not up to enabling them, they won’t go much faster than the ones you have already.

The headline — which, let's face it, will be the only thing a whole bunch of people are going to read — really makes it out like they bought shitty trains, or even that trains can't be better. Which is just untrue.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#20

Post by garciasn »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #17
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

Most people don't want trains. Most places where people want trains have them (high density places).

It’s a chicken or egg problem. Unfortunately, because train travel is slow and expensive, it’s simply less expensive and faster to fly.

If the rail infrastructure was upgraded to allow for faster travel and the costs were lowered, Americans would find them more desirable—-guaranteed.

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