Acela speed logs

Trains Magazine Passenger
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There’s been a lot of discussion on HSR but I don’t think anyone has ever posted a speed log of an Acela before. So here are two. Courtesy of the Railway Performance Society of which I belong. Members post logs of train performances from around the world. For more info on the society please see https://rpsarchives.org.

These were the most current Acela logs in their archives. Two runs. One from Boston to New York 9 April 2013 and one from New York to Philadelphia 18 March 2017. Recorder was R Neville-Carle.

130409 boston sth ny penn
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170318 ny penn philadelphia 30th
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Fastest speeds were on the Boston New York run and specifically in Mass and Rhode Island where there are long tangents and new constant tension catenary allowing 150mph max.

New York to Philadelphia run was before constant tension was implemented so 135mph max. Today’s cat allows max 150mph in New Jersey.

Enjoy!

I’ve yet to ride an Acela. I was visiting my niece Kimberly in Boston about 20 years ago when I was still living in New York. She was from Texas originally and still a country girl at heart. I took her on her first train ride by taking the T from her home in Revere into Boston. She would always drive into Boston. She liked the T. While in Boston I said let’s ride the Acela to Providence as I’ve never been on it.

She asked what the Acela was and I said it’s a high speed train. She was game until I mentioned it went 150mph. Well that killed that. She was too afraid to ride it. “My F-150 gets all squirrelly over 90. I’m riding no train that goes 150.”

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Thanks, JL this should make for interesting reading!

Disappointingly little even over 130.

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You’re welcome!

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I have ridden the Acela on three different occasions, i.e. two roundtrips from NYC to DC and one roundtrip from NYC to Philadelphia. If I remember correctly, the top speed was 135 mph at the time. I have also ridden a Northeast Regional from NYC to Washington or Philadelphia on at least five different occasions. They too were roundtrips. The top speed, I believe, was 125 mph.

I booked business class on both services. The Acela is nice. Whether it is worth the price difference is arguable.

On most of the trips, I had a seat mate. I strike up a conversation with anyone that will join in. Based solely on the people I talked with, it seemed that a higher percentage of my seatmates on the Acela were traveling on an expense account than on the NEC Regional.

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From what I read in the past Amtrak just needs to flip the NEC overhead wire to constant tension in a few places and they can increase speed limits on some stretches significantly. Seems like a cheaper upgrade than replacing tunnels and bridges but for some reason it seems to have a lower priority. Makes you wonder about prioritization of NEC projects as well.

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I would feature there is much more involved than just changing the manner in which the catenary is held in place. Rail and below need to be maintained to a higher level if the speed is increased.

Speed costs money, how fast can you afford to go!

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Did you watch your Amtrak Rail Camp video closely? Between 5:25" and 8:00" into the video, the Amtrak employee speaking to the rail camp participants talks about how Amtrak is converting over to constant tension catenary on tracks 2 and 3 near Princeton Jct. and CP Clark. This allows 160 mph running on the two center fast tracks.

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Anyone who was involved in Metroliner development or who has seen the spark shows of early air-secondary-suspension Silverliners on fixed-tension catenary KNOWS there is nothing more important to stable high speed than sensible catenary that handles reflected shock, running displacement, etc. correctly.

It is true that some of the pan shocks can be reduced… somewhat… with smoother running or better suspension. But even mounting multiple-stage active pans on a servo-stabilized platform did not help ‘enough’ for very high speed in wind or weather. And achieving and maintaining the necessary line and surface is orders of magnitude more expensive than converting to proper OHLE, even before we start having to consider active tilt or ‘negative cant deficiency’ for non-HSR legacy lines of road.

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In some cases it is just the overhead wire. Without constant tension the wire droops in high temperatures resulting in speed limits because they do not want to snag the wire and bring it down (which I think happened once or twice in the past). There is another issue with it as well.

Some guy did a YouTube video on it. He alleged if they fixed the wire it would cut 20-30 min in travel duration and it would be relatively cheap compared to other improvements. It was mentioned in the Amtrak Camp video as mentioned above as well. I do not know if they are replacing it all at once or incrementally though.

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If Amtrak is building and maintaining Class 8 track (160 MPH) where the catenary is the ‘mechanical’ speed limiter of 125 MPH (Class 7 track) - they are throwing money away. If they are not throwing money away with over spec building and maintenance they will have to upgrade the track structure to Class 8 track and maintain it at that level. While the type catenary may be the limiting factor - it is not the only factor for speeds higher than 125 MPH.

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Perhaps FRA regs need to be revisited/revised?

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Catenary is not the ‘limiting factor’ of anything concerned with track class. You will note that the number given for fixed-tension maximum speed for the Gibbs & Hill construction is 135mph, not 125mph, and this should obviously tip you off to the track class having to be higher than that to permit the rated speed. That is where the 160mph, formerly 150mph, comes in – there is no need for a track class “between” 125 and 150, as the expensive part of rebuilding comes above 125mph when you need physical sealed-corridor grade separation everywhere.

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According to the 2019 Northeast Corridor Intercity Travel Study of travel in the NEC corridor, which was updated as of July 18th, personal vehicles accounted for 78% of travel between the corridor’s major airline markets, i.e. Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. When all of the communities in the corridor were included, personal vehicles accounted for 81% of trips of more than 30 miles. The findings probably have changed a bit since 2019, but personal vehicles are the dominate mode of transportation in the NEC.

The largest group of potential new riders for Amtrak in the NEC appears to be those who drive. And for most of them, the better bet appears to be the NEC Regional trains. In FY24 approximately 77% of NEC passengers road a NEC regional train as opposed to an Acela.

Amtrak’s plan should be to provide a service that beats driving. It should emphasize safety, affordability, reliability, convenience, and comfort. I doubt most passengers care about top speed or average speed. They just want to get to their destination on-time for a fare that does not break the piggy bank. Which raises a fundamental question. At what point is the incremental increase in speed not justified by the incremental capital and operating costs?

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I sincerely doubt that a train would attract a driver if the train is no faster door to door. People who don’t care about speed are already on the train or don’t have a car.

Britain did a study and found that top speeds need to be (if I recall correctly) in the 125-150mph zone just to cover their variable costs. Below that and fares drop (people pay more for faster) and yet costs go up because crew are paid by the hour.

I’ll see if I can find that study. I don’t think I saved it. So I’ll have to do a web search.

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Look at that, the Heartland Flyer is competitive with the NEC Accela: :smiley:

Amtrak occupancy rates vary by route and time, but generally, they aim for high occupancy, especially on busy routes. In the Northeast Corridor, occupancy can be around 52% on average, with Acela reaching 64% and Regionals at 46%. Other routes, like the Albany-Toronto (S), can have a 57% occupancy rate. Amtrak also uses real-time capacity indicators in their app to help passengers choose less crowded trains.

Factors Affecting Occupancy:

Route: Some routes are naturally more popular than others.
Time of year/day: Peak travel times will have higher occupancy.
Train capacity: Amtrak can adjust train capacity by adding cars and locomotives.
Real-time information: Amtrak provides real-time occupancy data to help passengers make informed decisions, according to Amtrak Media.

Examples:
Northeast Corridor: Acela (64%) and Regionals (46%).
Albany-Toronto (S): 57%.
Texas routes: Heartland Flyer (64%), Texas Eagle (60%).
Sunset Limited: 44%.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On a more serious note: I think the compete with automobiles goal of NEC trains is not an achievable goal due to basic issues below:

  1. Capacity Amtrak has available on its mainline would never make much of a dent on parallel freeways even if Amtrak could afford to ramp up capacity significantly via borrowing and new equipment. Even if it could afford the enhanced infrastructure and more trainsets, I suspect Amtrak might need more train tracks.

  2. Suspect that like a lot of Amtrak corridors that trains are strained on peak capacity hours. They would have to significantly surge capacity during rush hours probably exponentially than it is now.

  3. One of the reasons Amtrak charges so much for NEC trains is because of limited frequency of trains. Ramp up frequencies and drop prices would I believe be a great way to increase NEC profitability but again it does not have the money to do this.

  4. Suspect Amtrak infrastructure would probably not be able to handle it if you doubled the train frequency. I would love to see Amtrak do a demonstration for maybe a week of an increase of 50% of train frequencies or even 25%, just to see if current employees or infrastructure could handle it.

I-95 metric from internet, roughly approx and from Google Gemini: 300,000 vehicles a day…this is just one freeway.

NEC metric, roughly approx and from Google Gemini: 29,600 riders a day across how many trains?

You also do not want to run all the Amtrak trains at 100% capacity as I am not sure that would be an enjoyable experience but they could boost occupancy up to 80% via better pricing in my view. Amtrak runs at 64% primarily because it charges more for it’s service than most people feel is reasonable OR it could be also due to lack of good scheduling / marketing.

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Not sure if it was feasible with 19th C clearances but Amtrak trains on the NEC should be double-deckers, same as California and NJ. Increased capacity in the same line occupancy and crew so cost per passenger reduced. I think JL Chicago is right about speed. If the time point to point by train is only marginally better than driving, most will continue to use their cars.

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NJT has double-deck cars that go through the North River tunnels (not designed for catenary) every day, and I doubt clearances in the four East River tunnels are more restrictive. Anything in Baltimore ought to be solved definitively in the Douglass revision, just as the fake reboot of Gateway would do.

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So I wonder why Amtrak didn’t go double, a tactic used in Europe and Asia for LD corridors needing more capacity. With better signaling, tighter headways could also help.

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In Fy24, the Acela trains had an Adjusted Operating Profit of $134.0 million or an average of $41.38 per rider. The Northeast Regionals had an Adjusted Operating Profit of $146.4 million or an average of $13.52 per rider. The average load factor for the Acel was 68.1 percent; the average for the NEC Regionals was 65.8%, as per Amtrak’s FY24 Monthly Performance Report, which is its year end report.

The Heartland Flyer had an Adjusted Operating Loss of $7.4 million or $92.04 per rider. Its average occupancy in FY24 was 54.1%. The Texas Eagle had an Adjusted Operating Loss of $42 million or an average of approximately $129 per rider. Its average load factor was 73.8 per cent. The Sunset Limited had an Adjusted Operating Loss of $47.8 million or an average of approximately $622 per passenger. The average load factor was 41.4%.

What the Heartland Flyer, Texas Eagle, and Sunset Limited have to do with the NEC is unknown.

The question is how much incremental speed, if any, is required to get people out of their cars and on the trains in the NEC? To do so, the train has to beat driving. By how much is problematic. Whether additional investments to increase the speeds along the NEC is a good investment is also problematic. Incremental increases in speed, unless they can be shown to be a competitive advantage, as opposed to bragging rights, can be a poor investment.

I worked as a flight instructor and courier pilot for approximately three years. At 75% power, the light twin that I flew on a regular basis had a true air speed of 200 mph. Throttled back to 55% power, the airspeed dropped by approximately 22 percent, but the fuel burn dropped approximately 35 to 38%. With four people onboard, the range at 75% power was approximately 800 miles; at 55% power the range was nearly 1,500 miles. Higher speeds cost money. Unless it can be shown that they are a significant marketing draw, as opposed to bragging rights, investing in higher speeds could be a bad investment.

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Of course. But increases in sustained speed through actual raised speed or fewer stops or reduced dwell times are all methods to reduce time from point A to B or C etc. The train needs to be better than driving to get folks to switch at greater cost.

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