NorthEast corridor Why Faster Southbound?

[Ryan]

And Ryan, this is not meant to be mean, but I noticed you referred to PVD as "P-town" in one of your posts. Just so you know, P-town is what most folks call Provincetown, which is the town at the very tip of Cape Cod. I just don't want you to confuse folks with the abbreviation as most New Englanders would think of Provincetown when they hear "p-town".

Thanks! When I was a young Ensign living in Newport (many) years ago, that's how we always referred to PVD - guess that was just confined the the small group of us.

Those who know me know that I, on occasion, can dive into statistics and simply go nuts. So far, I haven't dived into this issue any more closely than pulling up a bunch of the Status Maps archive records and looking at them, but I have to say that I'm a bit "intrigued." When I use that word, my wife usually cringes and whispers, "Oh no."

You'd probably love the python scripts I cooked up to take a years worth of those files for one train and chew through them.

2. Is there a database somewhere of historical travel times that I can analyse to see- on average- how long the the PVD to BBY portion usually takes?

Check out amtrakstatusmaps.net. On the left side click on "Status File Archives".
I'm running out to a meeting, but if I get a chance today I'll run through the stats for 2160 and 2164 and see what comes out.

 

[Guest]

Wow- thank you! Can you possibly check 86 and 174 while you are at it?

Thanks again!

 

[amamba]

Thanks- I am actually commuting from Boston and worried about the return so probably 2160 or 2164. Two other questions:1. Is the train status correct down to the last few minutes?

2. Is there any monthly Acela pass?

Thanks!

Nope, there is no monthly acela pass. If you want to take acela you must purchase individual tickets for each train.

 

[brandon02852]

Why would a daily commuter be taking acela anyway? That seems like a pricey commute. Don't forget that the monthly passes ($378 between PVD - BOS) are only good on the regionals.
To the OP, I live in PVD and my husband commutes daily to BOS on amtrak. He takes the 66 in the morning. The train has many commuters. That train often arrives into PVD early but then it sits at the platform and waits to leave until the time that is on the schedule. Of course as others have mentioned, that is not always true for acela.

There are many days that amtrak trains arrive early into BOS, it just kind of depends. It generally takes around 40 minutes, give or take a few.

If you miss the 66 in the morning, you have to wait a few hours for another regional or take the MBTA into BOS in the morning.

And Ryan, this is not meant to be mean, but I noticed you referred to PVD as "P-town" in one of your posts. Just so you know, P-town is what most folks call Provincetown, which is the town at the very tip of Cape Cod. I just don't want you to confuse folks with the abbreviation as most New Englanders would think of Provincetown when they hear "p-town".

Haha I noticed that too. If we abbreviate Providence at all (which is rare for us Rhode Islanders in the first place), we would call it "Prov". P-Town is ALWAYS used for Provincetown.

 

[Ryan]

OK, sorry that I didn't get to this sooner:

Train 86:
Early: 0.0%
On Time: 15.55%
Less than 10 minutes late: 49.16%
10-20 minutes late: 17.23%
20-30 minutes late: 5.88%
30-45 minutes late: 6.72%
45 minutes to one hour late: 2.52%
One to two hours late: 2.52%
Two to three hours late: 0.42%
More than 3 hours late: 0.0%

Train 174:
Early: 0.0%
On Time: 4.44%
Less than 10 minutes late: 56.89%
10-20 minutes late: 18.22%
20-30 minutes late: 7.56%
30-45 minutes late: 5.78%
45 minutes to one hour late: 3.11%
One to two hours late: 1.78%
Two to three hours late:  0.89%
More than 3 hours late: 1.33%

Train 2160:
Early: 0.0%
On Time: 0.44%
Less than 10 minutes late: 43.81%
10-20 minutes late: 44.25%
20-30 minutes late: 7.08%
30-45 minutes late: 2.65%
45 minutes to one hour late: 1.33%
One to two hours late: 0.44%
Two to three hours late:  0.0%
More than 3 hours late: 0.0%

Train 2164:
Early: 0.0%
On Time: 34.92%
Less than 10 minutes late: 44.44%
10-20 minutes late: 14.29%
20-30 minutes late: 2.38%
30-45 minutes late: 0.79%
45 minutes to one hour late: 0.79%
One to two hours late: 1.59%
Two to three hours late:  0.0%
More than 3 hours late: 0.79%

Edit:

I'm more of a graphical person, so here's all that data plotted up:

2160 does a lot worse than 2164 for some reason...

 

[Guest]

Thanks!!!! So unless it is coming into PVD late- it is taking the full 51 minutes to get from PVD to Boston. Is it possible to analyse on average how late it leaves it providence?

Thanks!!

 

[amamba]

This is just an anecdote, but whenever I take acela I feel like we get into PVD around 5-10 minutes late. I can't say I have ever arrived on time in PVD when coming from the south and heading north.

 

[Ryan]

This is just an anecdote, but whenever I take acela I feel like we get into PVD around 5-10 minutes late. I can't say I have ever arrived on time in PVD when coming from the south and heading north.

The statistics for those two trains certainly seem to back that up.

Thanks!!!! So unless it is coming into PVD late- it is taking the full 51 minutes to get from PVD to Boston.

I'm not sure why you're drawing that conclusion from the data.

Is it possible to analyse on average how late it leaves it providence?

Those are departure times from PVD. For example, train 2160 is scheduled to leave PVD at 3:45, so the stats above can instead be stated as:Train 2160:
Early: 0.0%
Departs PVD On Time: 0.44%
Departs PVD between 3:45 and 3:54 PM: 43.81%
Departs PVD between 3:55 and 4:04: 44.25%
Departs PVD between 4:05 and 4:14: 7.08%
Departs PVD between 4:15 and 4:30: 2.65%
Departs PVD between 4:30 and 4:45: 1.33%
Departs PVD between 4:45 and 5:45: 0.44%
I may be able to do some monkeying around and derive the actual running time for each day, but it's going to tell you that the train takes about 35 minutes to do it everyday.

 

[amamba]

Nice charts Ryan. :hi:

 

[PRR 60]

Ryan: Great stats!! I'm in awe.

 

[Ryan]

Thanks! This stuff has some practical applications in the work that I do, so the opportunity to learn Python on a "real" project has been helpful.

Picking out times for two different stations and only outputting a travel time if you had valid data for both stations turned out to be an interesting problem. I think that I've got it, though. I also figured out how to make plots, which will come in handy in my day job.

There are only 126 days in 2012 that there is both a recorded departure time from PVD and a recorded arrival time into BOS.

The average travel time for those 126 days is 44 minutes. A histogram of the travel times looks like this:

 

[afigg]

OK, sorry that I didn't get to this sooner:

Thanks for the detailed stats breakdown. I did a check of 2160 on Amtrak Status maps archive for the past week plus and it usually was closer to on-time at New Haven and lost time between New Haven and Providence. Track and catenary work at the stations for the Shore Line East service conversion to M-8 cars? The Niantic River bridge project is almost done, but they switched over to the new bridge last fall and have been tearing out the old bridge. The project to replace the rail bridge over Rt. 1 at Branford? I don't think they have started on the 3rd track and high level platforms at Kingston yet.
The reason I'm bringing up the track work is whether that is the cause for the constant delays and will thus go away as the track and station work is done or is it due to congestion? They added padding to the schedule for the Acela NYP-BOS trip times several years ago for the 2 track segment and other work on the NHV line. Would be nice to see the Acela NYP-BOS schedule trip times improve in 2014 or 2015, rather than get slower than they were.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Ryan, I did the same thing when I first learned MS Access on a job but then was let go (temp job) two days later. I bought it for my home computer and set up my Avon "business" on it.

 

[amamba]

I would not be a happy camper if it took me over 120 minutes to make it from PVD - BOS!

 

[OBS]

FWIW, in reference to 2164 from PVD to BOS, the travel time is always 45-50 minutes because between PVD and RTE it catches up to, and follows, a MBTA Local in to Bos.

 

[jis]

Why would a daily commuter be taking acela anyway? That seems like a pricey commute. Don't forget that the monthly passes ($378 between PVD - BOS) are only good on the regionals.

You'd be amazed to see how many people "almost commute" between Newark and Philadelphia (and even more so New York and Philadelphia) on Acelas!!! I was!
By "almost commute" I mean that they don't do it every day of the week. But they do so several days in each week.

 

[jis]

FWIW, in reference to 2164 from PVD to BOS, the travel time is always 45-50 minutes because between PVD and RTE it catches up to, and follows, a MBTA Local in to Bos.

This is why a third track is envisaged all the way from Readville to Attleboro. It should be quite a challenge through Canton I imagine, and most likely they will punt on that part. But there is a third track talked about in this context in the various planning sessions.

 

[OBS]

Why would a daily commuter be taking acela anyway? That seems like a pricey commute. Don't forget that the monthly passes ($378 between PVD - BOS) are only good on the regionals.

You'd be amazed to see how many people "almost commute" between Newark and Philadelphia (and even more so New York and Philadelphia) on Acelas!!! I was!
By "almost commute" I mean that they don;t do it every day of the week. But they do so several days in each week.

Agreed. It is amazing how many "regular" riders I run into on the Acela's. I would "assume" that maybe the Company pays for their travel?