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That’s wild. They’re retiring half the fleet between March 2023 and February 2024. At that rate there won’t be Acela’s in 2025. With Alstom circling the drain, we may be headed to Metroliner 3.0.

That’s not good if they cut turns too close. Lived experience suggests Acelas and their priority have a wonderful way of tying everything up as dispatchers furiously scramble to invent minutes that don’t exist. If that becomes a regular occurrence the whole NEC will suffer.

I think most of what @west point has said is true, but I think there is a significant demand aspect to the NEC recovery. I don’t think it’s appropriate to vilify the railroad for assigning more equipment to a route with capacity constrains, surging demand, and nominal profitability. I have not...

The End of Year Ridership Report is out! Amtrak produced 10 annual Route ridership records this year, the most since 2014 of my numbers are correct. Systemwide ridership is off 4,000,000 or 15ish percent from 2019. The Northeast Regional skyrocketed to over 9,000,000 riders for the first time...

Gotta get ridership up somehow

Seeing how this is working, I think I like it. I also think it will increase revenue for the railroad. I would never in a million years think to pay for a flexible fare when an $18 saver was available. I’d just roll the dice. I, and I suspect others, would pay an extra few bucks to have the...

That’s really bad, even for Amtrak.

SEPTA tried that slogan too. The signs were still up in places in the 2010’s. Once Somebody graffitied “WHEN?” after the sign with the slogan at City Hall.

More propaganda with some nice shots of the assembly lines: https://media.amtrak.com/2023/10/amtrak-airo-production-stimulates-nationwide-economy/ Given that it’s October 2023, do we think it may be possible the Cascades sees service something in 2025, rather than 2026? Presumably there is...

I agree with the 3.9 figure. I don’t know when the symposium was and what figures were used, but it seems to have been a great guess. To address @TheMalahat it seems at this point to be equipment related, but there were also major disruptions in January to all services out of CHI, and also a...

In August the following routes report YTD ridership above August 2019: Northeast Regional (113% on the month, likely a record) Ethan Allen Express (150% on the month, consistent with the year) Vermonter (88% on the month, likely off due to storm-related issues) Maple Leaf (115% on the month)...

The consistent issue with this line of thinking is that sheer idealism can’t send trains down the tracks and that’s what Acela 21 was all about. Why would/by what mechanism would Alstom just give Amtrak more trains and service when they are already certainly incurring nasty losses on this...

I agree with this. The USA have wasted billion after billion on track and signal upgrades, paid for increased maintenance, wasted billions on rolling stock that apparently can’t roll, so that we can have a high speed rail system akin to, I am often told, non industrialized former Soviet...

That’s ridiculous. You pay a premium for those tickets, you should be able to drink as many 75¢ water bottles as your heart desires.

Fair enough, but I think the connection situation will still be an improvement over the status quo in this scenario: PGH transfers to PHL, NYP, TRE, and NWK should still be accommodated via the next available NER at WAS. PGH transfers to East of HAR will save considerable time waiting for the...

https://www.penndot.pa.gov/Documents/Amtrak-Pennsylvanian_Final-Report.pdf It’s not a bad price for what’s being done. It’s more a question of necessity.

It seems like Siemens is finally starting to churn these out a a good clip, hopefully a sign of good things to come.

It seems recently a bunch (maybe 6) Viewliners of different varieties have appeared at Penn Coach. It was too far to see what was what. Could these be getting ready to return to active duty? Can Penn Coach even do that type of work?

That is correct. Equipment turns same day at CHI, but not WAS. Even if it were on time, 3 hours would be a remarkable turnaround for a long haul train.

That is correct. Currently only the Cascades is to be entirely diesel equipped