"Crowds Heed Amtrak's 'All Aboard'" WSJ.com

A Wall Street Journal article talks about Amtrak and the ridership increase it is experiencing.

Some quotes:

"Ridership on the passenger rail system is up 6% so far this year, the biggest jump since the late 1970s. On the Acela Express, trains that run at higher speeds between Washington, New York and Boston, the number of riders has surged 20% over the past 10 months."


"... some big names in the airline industry are supporting Amtrak by calling for the U.S. to do what governments in Europe and Asia have long done -- building high-speed train lines for short-distance travelers and freeing up runway space for long-distance flights."

"Another airline-industry legend Robert Crandall, former CEO of American Airlines parent AMR Corp., says improvements to Amtrak's network in the Northeast are one of the best ways to reduce aviation gridlock"

Any improvement to the NEC tracks will be better for Amtrak commuters. Better tracks, more and newer trains will make for faster travel times and fewer delays.

Pushing for NEC upgrades to ease airline congestion in the Northeast is a good way for Amtrak to secure existing and gain new funding from the government. And it makes sense too I think, it's an efficient way for the government to spend money to improve travel along the East coast from DC to Boston. Have you flown recently? Who wants to do that, it's a nightmare.

Hopefully Amtrak will keep ticket prices flat. Commuting via Amtrak between Philadelphia and New York City is still the way to go but the cost is still staggering. If prices remain flat but travel times improve, that's at least a positive trade off.

New Direct Philly to NYC Acela Train Goes Wrong Way for Philly-NYC Commuters!

This month Amtrak introduced a new Acela service offering round trip direct service from Philadelphia to New York City. I mentioned this new service a couple months ago in my blog post here. The train numbers for each leg are 2105 in the morning and 2120 in the early evening.

The problem is 2105 goes from NYC-PHI in the AM and 2120 PHI-NYC in the PM. This is the wrong direction for Philadelphia to New York commuters.

Train number 2105 leaves New York Penn Station at 6:50 AM and arrives at 30th Street Station at 7:55. The other half of the leg, train number 2120 leaves 30th Street Station at 5:23 PM and arrive in Penn Station at 6:30 PM.

These are stellar times, just over one hour between NYC and Philly is great. My guess is these trains come in under 60 minutes consistently provided normal congestion on the NEC tracks.

So why no similar service from PHI-NYC in the AM and NYC-PHI in the PM? Haven't found info on this yet but I'll keep looking. My guess is that since they just rolled this service out Amtrak is being cautious. Plus I'm further guessing their market research told them that the NYC-PHI in the AM and PHI-NYC in the PM has more potential customers.

If this service is successful I would expect the same service to be added for Philly but likely not until 2008. So though this is a good new addition by Amtrak, there's no real tangible benefit for the Phi-NYC Amtrak commuter at this time.