Northeast Corridor Rant

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Roger

Roger

Train Attendant
Joined
Aug 22, 2008
Messages
26
Location
Richmond, VA
Returned last night from a week's trip to Maine, taking the Downeaster from Portland, ME to Boston, and then taking another train from Boston to Richmond. It was a LONG day of transit. The NEC train was already behind schedule, maybe 45 minutes or so, when we stopped completely on the tracks south of Fredericksburg, VA due to an engine malfunction. Passengers, me included, were not pleased, exhausted, and already late enough that our Friday night plans were being changed. We eventually got home, the delay wasn't too long, though we feared the worst. Anyway, there were a lot of unhappy passengers.

One thing that annoyed me on this trip was the times we would have to stop and wait for an Acela train to pass. The NEC is treated like second-rate citizens, for sure, in this instance, and when you're already falling behind schedule (a regular thing, I gather), it is a slap in the face to stop for the Acela.

Not the most pleasant of trips to or from, this go around, and as we stood still on the tracks I was just wishing I was on a bus.

I still like Amtrak, and am a Rewards credit card user, but it was a rough go.

Anybody else had bad luck on the Northeast Corridor recently? Is it slipping in regards to making times? I heard SO many complaints on the train from regular users mentioning all sorts of recent problems.
 
The regionals get held for acela and it's standard practice. I don't consider that a slap in the face. They want to keep the premium service on time as much as possible.
 
Were you 45 minutes late because you were held for acelas? Or were you late for other reasons and they ran the acela past you to keep it on time? Rule is a late train always gets later.
 
And what if that bus was stuck in traffic? Would you be able to get up, walk around and stretch your legs? And if it was a long wait, would you be able to go to the Cafe Seat for a snack or a drink?
 
It's a long day in amfleet 1 cars. I'm not sure what your fare was. But for a similar trip I might have tried a silver service train from nyp to Richmond. Those are amfleet 2 cars with more legroom. Or try a sleeper. The included meal in the diner might have made this cost effective.
 
Riding from the BOS area to RVR in coach in an Amcan I is a long ride. For that ride I might have sprung for BC. Even though it's really a rip off. But the extra leg room would be nice. That's a long trip.
 
Roger said:
Returned last night from a week's trip to Maine, taking the Downeaster from Portland, ME to Boston, and then taking another train from Boston to Richmond. It was a LONG day of transit. The NEC train was already behind schedule, maybe 45 minutes or so, when we stopped completely on the tracks south of Fredericksburg, VA due to an engine malfunction. Passengers, me included, were not pleased, exhausted, and already late enough that our Friday night plans were being changed. We eventually got home, the delay wasn't too long, though we feared the worst. Anyway, there were a lot of unhappy passengers.

One thing that annoyed me on this trip was the times we would have to stop and wait for an Acela train to pass. The NEC is treated like second-rate citizens, for sure, in this instance, and when you're already falling behind schedule (a regular thing, I gather), it is a slap in the face to stop for the Acela.

Not the most pleasant of trips to or from, this go around, and as we stood still on the tracks I was just wishing I was on a bus.

I still like Amtrak, and am a Rewards credit card user, but it was a rough go.

Anybody else had bad luck on the Northeast Corridor recently? Is it slipping in regards to making times? I heard SO many complaints on the train from regular users mentioning all sorts of recent problems.
Click to expand...
Yes, the On-Time Performance (OTP) for the NEC has taken a hit in the past year. The derailment last year and the subsequent slow orders & track maintenance on the New Haven Line has been a significant contributor to the decline. But catenary problems on the southern end of the NEC, power problems, aging movable bridges getting stuck, traffic congestion, engine breakdowns have also contributed to the drop in OTP. The ACS-64s are badly needed to boost engine reliability for the Regionals, Keystones, LD trains on the NEC and should help improve OTP when they are fully deployed.

As for the Acelas getting priority, well, the Acela passengers are paying a lot more for their trip, so one of the benefits the passengers get is that priority to stay on schedule. I have been on Regionals where we stopped at the station for an extended time until the Acela passes by. Adding capacity and fixing the bottlenecks on the NEC will reduce the frequency of Regionals getting held for overtaking Acelas.
 
There are track projects occurring up and down the NEC, (including Metro-North territory) which puts the squeeze on trains. Once you're out of your slot, sometimes there is no place to go expect behind an on time train. If an Acela is in the picture, they will attempt to run it first since it moves faster, usually makes less stops, typically gets in and out of the station quicker and as previously mentioned, the passengers paid a premium price for this advantage.

The bottom line is the schedule usually drags during the production season. This is true on most railroads.
 
A couple weeks ago I was riding a TGV consist that was twenty minutes late and a week later I was riding an ICE consist that was a full two hours late. Although to be fair no other trains overtook us during that time. The TGV was completing a five hundred mile international journey that involved police action and a technical problem while operating on foreign tracks. The ICE train delay was due to an apparent suicide. It's never fun to be delayed but it can happen almost anywhere. Hopefully Amtrak and other operators and maintainers can find a way to continue upgrading the NEC without creating too much of a burden on concurrent operations.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I'm still an Amtrak fan, it just seems to be troublesome how many unhappy riders there are on the NEC, and how their meeting scheduled times is becoming less and less common, from all I hear and from what I've experienced. They are chasing customers away, but also selling out those NEC weekend journeys, so I guess they will survive it all.
 
I am just puzzled by the thought that a bus would be faster. IMO it rarely is because of traffic.

Here is my anecdote - I had friends visiting PVD two weeks ago. Two friends dropped on friend off at the train station, she was ticketed on a regional to PHL. They were driving to NYC (they live in sunnyside!).

In any case they dropped off the train friend around 5:30 pm for a 6ish train. Around 9 pm we started group texting and the folks in the car were still North of New Haven stuck in horrible traffic on I95. Meanwhile the train friend was past NHV and arrived home on time in PHL just after 11 pm. The train beat the car and she was comfortable and had a nice ride.
 
Acela150 said:
I wouldn't have chosen 95 to take back to NY. I would have taken the Merritt Parkway.
Click to expand...
From PVD I generally take 95 to new haven and cut over to the Merritt about there. PVD is on the coast and on 95, it's not like from Boston where you take the pike to 84 to 91 to the Merritt.
But that's immaterial because the terrible traffic was between new London and Norwich on 95 which makes sense when coming from PVD. Which is why I said in my post they were stuck in traffic north of new haven on 95.

Unless you have built a new Merritt which goes from PVD to NHV? :)

There are other back ways for example I take route 6 to 395 to 2 to hartford. But that's a big detour if there is no traffic and the destination is NHV.
 
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I'm pretty sure it's standard practice all around the world that express trains get priority, then intercity trains and then regional trains. Nothing really new or weird about that..
 
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