As long as they’re running on the same tracks as freight, that’s always going to be the case.
The Northeast Corridor (where the Acela runs) is owned by Amtrak and is not shared with freight. It’s the track curves that are the problem. This is some of the oldest right of way in the US.
For anyone who doesn’t know, freight trains make a lot more money and will illegally take the right of way over passenger trains and just pay the fines. This happened to me on my first and last train ride in the last decade. Waited over an hour one the tracks as the angry conductor explained the situation.
What? In US the right of way is decided by the trains, not infrastructure dispatchers? What you described sound like the freight trains just commonly run through the stop signal which is a BIG NO-NO.
In a lot of cases in the US the lines themselves are privately owned so the owners will prioritise the most profitable services. The punishment for delaying a passenger service is a fixed fine with no further implications, so that fine is just a business expense.
Legally passenger rail has the right of way, but reality can turn that around.
- freight isn’t always scheduled, but “when full”, so it’s tough to coordinate
- freight can be slow so owners have no incentive to keep the track in good condition, slowing everyone
- freight is infrequent so no need to parallel rails: many places have only maintained one track, so how can a faster train pass?
- freight trains have gotten longer, outgrowing many sidings, so there are fewer places they can pull over to let faster trains pass
Each of these is quite legal, and even normal to some extent, but adds up to huge delays and unpredictable schedules for passenger rail
NOTE: this is also one cause for our unacceptable levels of accidents. As freight trains get slower and longer they block at grade intersections for unacceptable lengths of time. As they’ve gotten longer without updating sidings and rail yards to match, there are too many cases of trains stopped blocking at grade intersections. Too many drivers frustrated by too many delays tempts some to cross the tracks when it’s not safe, with predictable results.
This is why America will never compete with places like japan or China because they build dedicated rail for their transport networks.
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Serious question, why doesn’t Amtrak just build its own tracks so they don’t have to deal with the freight companies?
Prohibitive cost?
As long as certain people expect Amtrak to be profitable, and we’re not willing to invest in fixing a century of deferred maintenance, how can we possible dig out of this hole?
My hope is in state supported routes, although they’re too limited won’t be fast or comprehensive. For example New Hampshire is not a place you’d find enough people to build profitable high speed rail. However they own control some existing track given up by freight rail. In particular I understand there’s a track to Manchester that connects to a track in use by MBTA commuter rail, and they’re considering rail service between Boston and the capital, including the airport. I don’t know if it will happen, but it would only be because of the state.
A lot of investments from the infrastructure act were to study state supported routes and how to add them to the Amtrak network. This is a big deal, because rail is so much more useful when added to a network. We’re stuck at the beginning where each project is considered for only its own merits, and need to build to the point where they can also be considered for the overall network
There isn’t space on their “high speed” routes for proper high speed tracks. They could do it on other lines besides NE corridor but none of them are actually well traveled enough to warrant it. Other places which have good high speed rail either just seized land as needed (China) or have much more compact transportation routes between proper urban centers (Japan, France).
They literally said new tracks, not existing tracks
The problem isn’t the tracks, it’s the right-of-way. The agency just doesn’t have the budget to acquire the necessary land.
It doesn’t go any faster until the tracks are updated, but the experience inside is much better!
experience inside is much better!
Yes, absolutely!
I miss the Quiet Car. For those of us who used to commute from Philly to NYC, a train ride that is anywhere from 75-90 minutes long is a blessing!It takes me 2-1/2 hours to drive from Philly to Montclair, NJ at 80 mph. Do I care that the new Acela may not be faster? Who knows. When I sit inside and feel that comfy ride? I doubt I’ll care.
Yes, the tracks need to be updated but Acela is still faster than me driving.
(( _ _ ))…zzzZZ
Passenger trains out of SPK, a town built by the railroads, leave at 01:15 eastbound or 03:19 westbound, nothing else.
I really wish America had faster trains like Europe
Amtrak has a bunch of infrastructure improvements that will make a bt of difference but they’re too limited. We have over a century of deferred maintenance on the rails.
It doesn’t matter how fast the train sets can go, when your limited by infrastructure like this
“State of the art” mhmm
Sadly, the art is “Impressionism”
Gotta love those rails. That are more like wet spaghetti. No idea how they can ride on them at all.
The tracks are the limiting factor. The acela trains are basically the TGV. They could go the same speed with better infrastructure.
The tracks and I’m sure the distances between stops. Hard to hit full speed when you already have to plan to slow down for the next stop.
Not really for Acela. The NE Corridor is fully grade separated for most parts and four cities chosen are far enough apart to make use of the train’s top speed.
It makes use of the trains top speed for less than 50 miles of the route. It’s basically only infrastructure: tight curves, ancient bridges and tunnels, too many choke points. It may be grade separated but you still can’t blast through towns at full speed. It’s limited by freight trains. It’s even limited by shipping, because of drawbridges.
Edit - Here’s a partial map illustrating speed increases for some planned infrastructure projects
Part of handling that is having both local and limited-stop services (which they likely already do) and a good local/commuter train network.
I’d think, in order to hit full speed even with a limited stop or express train, you’d still have speed issues coming up on a metro area. You can’t just blow through Philly at 160 even if you hadn’t planned on stopping there.
You can but the track has to be built for it. Japan has stations that are passed at 320km/h (200mph). You need minimum four tracks (two platforms, two passing) and curves/gradients suitable for the speed, along with noise mitigations as necessary.
If you’re trying to re-use tracks and stations built in the 1800s that’s possibly less feasible.
In an ideal world you’d have bypasses or tunnels to help them keep up speed, but that all depends on land allocation and investment. If you’re stuck with old windy narrow tracks then yes youre going to be limited.
Trains like shinkansen can go very fast through dense urban areas, i think mostly in tunnels - but also because they spend a lot to straighten the routes. Obviously there are still some slow sections, but they minimize it by design - and probably a willingness to bulldoze historical land ownership.
I guess in Philly the route probably winds around a bit. https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ It looks like all lines funnel through a couple of very tight curves around the centre. That looks like quite a sensitive choke point.
But apart from that section it looks like the acela limit is over 100mph for quite a lot of the urban area around Philly, which isn’t too bad. Its not like its crawling around at 60mph for half the distance.
There’s another interesting looking slow chicane in Wilmington. In that case there’s what looks like an ideal bypass line already there for any express. It runs through a massive siding (freight maybe?) that is limited to 10-30mph. Looks like a no brainer to me, strengthen those bridges and run any express through that. plenty of dead space around there to reconfigure just one level crossing i think to worry about. most of it is 3-4 tracks already judging by google map.
I heard that US freight and passenger rail don’t like to share and enjoy though so probably that’s a non starter.
The speed with high speed rail is usually made between cities, less so in dense areas. But that doesnt mean there is no gains to be made by improving track and running at say 130-160 km/h (80-100 mph)
To my knowledge these trains can alao accelerate quite fast because they are electric trains.
The express service is still considerably limited in the DC to Boston because it’s like 40% metro and still has to slow down. You have DC, Philly, NY, and Boston all with substantial suburban infrastructure and it adds up.
In the best of situations on express it’s hard to justify express acella unless you are really cash strapped.
The Acela trains are far from being on par with French TGV, German ICE, or Japanese Shinkansen.
For a European, this is just a medium speed train.
As the comment you’ve replied to says, they are limited by the line speed and their design, and design speed, is effectively the same as the latest TGV.
TGVs at “normal speed” go at 320km/h or 200MPH. They can go up to 350MPH.
The Acela with its 160MPH top speed does not come close.
Its literally the same trainset by the same manufacturer as the TGV, hence the comparison. The highest track speed on the northeast corridor is 160 MPH, which is why they’re calling it a 160 MPH train.
The problem is the infrastructure not the train. Its a good train.
No, it is not the same train. The Acela II has a technical top speed of 189MPH. It might be built by the same company (Alstom), but it is no TGV. One of the differences is that the Acela has less motor units than the TGV.
The Acela II has a technical top speed of 189MPH.
Sounds pretty comparable to 200 mph (320 km/h) to me…
The 200MPH is not the top speed. It is the operational speed. High speed trains in Europe regularly travel at speeds exceeding 300km/h.
Even if same train, it is not run under the same regulations. The US FRA regulations really kneecap the operational speeds:
For the track between New Haven and Boston, [Acela] has a waiver for operation at 7 inches of unbalanced superelevation. This means, that the [tilting] Acela is allowed to use the same curve speed as non-tilting TGVs (or multiple units) in France. The “Acela Express” looses about half an hour between New York and Boston, compared to best practice in tilting train usage. (It also looses at least half an hour, compared to the calculations of US railroad engineers in the 1960s.)
Source: https://zierke.com/shasta_route/pages/15regulation.html
Note that the above was written about Acela 1. The Acela 2 is supposedly lighter weight, so in theory FRA might allow higher speeds (though I have yet to see any progress there).
You’re not understanding the difference between the line speed and the train’s design speed. The train is capable of comparable speeds, significantly higher than the track speed
It is not. The technical top speed of the Acela II is less than 190MPH due to technical restrictions, and it has less engine units than a TGV.
From the comment that started this thread:
They could go the same speed with better infrastructure.
No, we all understood this the entire time.
America… Constantly innovating the shittiest trains possible
These are good trains. The problem are the tracks. There’s only one segment of the northeast corridor where they can reach 160.
They’re French trains, the only problem with the rolling stock is that it took them so long to get them into service
