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Bill: I agree with you; part of Amtrak's financial distress can be traced to wasting money on establishing the Acela brand name. However, the root cause of Amtrak's financial difficulties is its continued low ridership over the years. According to the statistical summary in Amtrak's FY 2000 Annual Report its annual ridership between FY 1991 and FY 2000 has averaged 21 million passengers. Further, according to the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics trips by train only accounted for one half of one percent (0.5%) of all passenger trips over 100 miles between 1977 and 1995. I got that last figure from the Amtrak Reform Council's Second Annual Report which was published in March, 2001 Speaking of the Acela Express; the July 9, 2001 schedule shows its Boston-New York timing is 3-1/2 hours. What happened to the 3 hour service it advertised for the Boston-New York run? Three and a half hours between Boston and New York is an average speed of 65 mph, hardly high speed rail especially when Amtrak's Turbotrains made the same run in 3-3/4 hours in the 1970's. Rudy Volin
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