Last spring, I had some experience with the speed from Washington to Boston. There were a few stretches south of New York that I timed at two miles to the minute, and there was at least one east of New Haven that I noted at the same timing.
However, I was unable to time any stretch at five miles in two minutes, for the train was late in arriving in Providence and had to follow an MBTA train into Boston--even stopping at a signal when the MBTA made a station stop, and creeping up on him after we stopped (I verified my impression by talking with the engineer after getting off the train in Boston).
Johnny
GN_Fan-- (1) the speed once we got out of Boston was quite high, so I was wondering what the normal running speed on the 1st part of the trip was, (2) the high speed didn't last long and dropped to 79 or less? for the remainder of the trip. Any plans to speed this up? And lastly (3) there was what appeared to be a mainline track on the right side of the train was O/S. The station platforms had steel ramps crossing that track so people could load from the second-most track(center track?), and I was wondering why that thrack was O/S. Does anyone know?
(1) The Maximum speed south of Boston is 150 MPH, reached in a couple of sections between Boston and Providence. (2) There are some 125 MPH zones between Providence and New Haven. South of New Haven the MAS drops to 100, though there is a bit of 110 on the Amtrak-owned stretch between New Rochelle and the Hell Gate Bridge. The impression of low speed on the Acela is a bit misleading. Try a Regional train some time. (3) Those locations are on Metro North trackage. The track upgrade and replacement projects there have been going on for a long time, with the out-of-service tracks scheduled for eventual return to service.
Back in October I embarked on a coast-to-coast Amtrak trip, starting in Boston and ending in Emeryville, CA. Because of station work in Albany, Amtrak annulled train 449 (sleeper only??) and routed us on the Acela south to NY, then on 49 up the Hudson. A few questions come to mind about the the Boston NY run -- (1) the speed once we got out of Boston was quite high, so I was wondering what the normal running speed on the 1st part of the trip was, (2) the high speed didn't last long and dropped to 79 or less? for the remainder of the trip. Any plans to speed this up? And lastly (3) there was what appeared to be a mainline track on the right side of the train was O/S. The station platforms had steel ramps crossing that track so people could load from the second-most track(center track?), and I was wondering why that thrack was O/S. Does anyone know?
BTW, the ride over Hell Gate was breathtaking. I had no idea that the southern approach was so high and so long. I felt like I was in an airplane. Another caveat, I had no idea you could check baggage on the Acela. When arriving at the Acela lounge, the attendant asked if we wanted to check our bags. Since we were on a US visit from Italy, we had more luggage than normal and was able to check them all the way to the west coast. That took a load off my mind -- and a lot of hassle too.
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