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Sleeker, Comfier, a Tiny Bit Faster: Riding Amtrak’s New Acela (NYT)
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:23 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) Sleeker, Comfier, a Tiny Bit Faster: Riding Amtrak’s New Acela
The NextGen high-speed trains feel more like those in China, Japan or France. But topping out at 160 m.p.h., they’re still relatively slow.
By Gabe Castro-RootPhotographs and Video by Hiroko Masuike Gabe Castro-Root and Hiroko Masuike rode NextGen Acela’s first passenger service from Boston to Washington.
Aug. 29, 2025 Updated 5:49 p.m. ET
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:25 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) The moment was a decade and $2.35 billion in the making for Amtrak, which in 2016 teamed up with the French train manufacturer Alstom to replace the aging rail fleet that operates as Acela, Amtrak’s premium, high-speed service in the Northeast Corridor. Now, as the first commercial trip of the new service, called NextGen Acela, departed South Station in Boston en route to Washington, the energy among passengers felt almost giddy. No matter that it was barely 6 a.m.
“It’s very special and unique to be here to take part in an inaugural high-speed train,” said Ben Wang, a transit enthusiast who traveled from San Jose, Calif., to be on the first run. “It’s quiet. It’s smooth. I love it.” |
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:25 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) The new trains are not, however, meaningfully faster, and still lag far behind high-speed rail in countries like China, Japan and France, where trains can surpass 200 m.p.h.
While NextGen Acela has a top speed of 160 m.p.h. — 10 m.p.h. faster than its predecessors — its timetables have not changed. In fact, on the first day of operation, the fastest scheduled NextGen service from Boston to Washington was set to take 7 hours 4 minutes — 24 minutes slower than the fastest service on an original Acela train. (It’s normal for route times to fluctuate throughout the day, and Acela is generally more than an hour faster than Amtrak’s standard Northeast Regional service.)
Passengers seemed to be enjoying those extra 24 minutes on board. |
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:26 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) Several passengers pointed out that even though the difference between 150 and 160 m.p.h. was impossible to discern by looking out the window, the ride felt noticeably smoother. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5767642&forum_id=2,#49222962) |
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:27 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) When the train pulled into South Station in Boston that evening, an “Acela-bration,” as Amtrak called it, awaited, complete with a rendition of “Uptown Funk” played on the helicon, a type of tuba.
Philip Palombi, an Amtrak engineer for more than 20 years, drove the new train to Boston on Wednesday. His verdict? The new controls would take some getting used to.
“It’s a lot more technology — what we look at to drive the train is completely different for us,” Mr. Palombi said.
The inaugural passenger run on Thursday mostly went off without a hitch, aside from a briefly jammed door and an “extremely large bird” that had to be cleaned off the front windshield. |
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:28 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) Still, the brand-new train caught some passengers by surprise.
“When it pulled up, I said, ‘Well, this is straight out of Europe,’” said Shannon Duescher, who was on her way home to Washington from a concert in New Jersey.
Manav Shah, traveling to visit family in New Jersey from his home in Boston, also compared it to trains in Europe and said he felt “Amtrak has finally stepped up its game.”
NextGen trains share technology with a model of high-speed T.G.V. trains in France, according to Alstom, which also makes the T.G.V.
The train made 10 stops, including in New Haven, New York and Philadelphia, where five other NextGen trains sparkled in a rail yard near the station. |
Date: August 29th, 2025 8:29 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) Arthur Morgan New Orleans, LA 4h ago True high speed rail can be 180 to 215 mph. Right now it takes over 8 hours on Amtrak from NYC to Buffalo (54 mph). That's with no delays, which there often are. With HSR, the trip would take two hours.
Meanwhile, in the past decade, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Poland, Greece and Indonesia have joined the bullet train community.
If we can overcome Republicans and preserve the rule of law and democracy in this country, maybe we can eventually bring HSR to our country.
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:29 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) B B DC 3h ago As a former Amtrak employee who worked on the rollout of these trains; they really are a major upgrade and show where Amtrak wants to (and could) be as a service with the FUNDING needed to make it happen. There are tons of upgrades happening on the Northeast Corridor to make it safer, faster, and more resilient - bridges, tunnels, electricity, signals, you name it, thanks to the Infrastructure Law. Same thing in other states we serve. Other countries with their great rail service do this thing called FUNDING that service. None of these rail companies are asked to do more with less the way Amtrak is - yet we've still hit record ridership now and hit $$ break-even in 2019 before COVID. Amtrak is full of dedicated hardworking people who love train travel and want more of it in the USA - it takes everyone to tell Congress and the government how you feel, over and over again. But meanwhile, I'm enjoying this small but significant Acela-bration!
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:30 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) ManhattanWilliam NYC 4h ago Having been to Japan, China, France and Spain where REAL high speed rail exists, I can only laugh at this extremely mediocre attempt to package the new Acela trains as something that we poor Americans should be proud of. The trains are being rolled out this week and are touted to last for 30 or more years. I can't think of a worse prognosis. Nobody can deny that compared with the current (barely) rolling stock Acela trains, these are an improvement. But when put up against high speed rail in each of the countries I mentioned, they're pretty appalling.
The old argument for not investing in trains in this country has always been that we prefer our cars. But the fact is that the Northeast Corridor is a very heavily used and important route, and the gold standard in modern trains that we should have is, instead, these mediocre trains that still run on old tracks, making true high speed rail impossible. And without overstating the obvious, these mediocre trains seem to be to be indicative of America as it exists in 2025 for we are, undoubtedly, a country in decline. There was a time when the United States led the world in transportation of every kind, but nothing could be further from the truth today. Sad, ladies and gentlemen, but true.
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:30 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) Newton Guy Newton, MA 3h ago A Ferrari on a dirt road. The perfect metaphor for America today.
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Date: August 29th, 2025 8:30 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (You = Privy to The Great Becumming™ = Welcum to The Goodie Room™) Richard Winston Salem, NC 4h ago It's probably not unreasonable to view the average train speed between major metropolitan areas as a metaphor for a nation's relative place in the world's pecking order before the end of the century.
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