Why is Boston-NY service so spotty?

I took the 5 pm Acela out of Boston last Sunday and had what I would call a perfect run, arriving on time in New York Penn at 8:45. We seemed to run at track speed the entire time, hit 150 on the appropriate stretches, etc. So, I'm not sure where they've gotten slower, other than that one stretch on Metro North were we used to hit 90 but now it's 80. Annoying to be sure that Metro North is going backwards, but that was just a 3 mile stretch anyway.

I think the OP has a point about poor "business travel" service though. He's correct to say it does not allow for a full business day in Beantown, but rather an abbreviated amount of time for getting work / meetings done in a single day.

Here's some ifs and a conclusion: If Acela caters to business travelers, and if Boston's business base is growing, and if Acela's contribution to the bottom line is better than a Regional, then cut one Regional during the day, and add a 6:30 PM departure from Boston to terminate at Penn Station.

gprimr1 wrote:The moveable bridges which can only be closed for limited amounts of time.

Isn't this a boating season problem? I think they came up with the number 39 for the number of trains allowed over certain bridges, but I don't what formula they used to arrive at that number.

It's a shame that a powerful group of few have so much control over a less powerful group of many, the rail passengers.

Slots are hard to come by/change, not to mention you have to cater to all markets along the route. I'm not familiar with operations east of New Haven, but just looking at all the issues from west of New Haven it is easy to see why there is almost no additional trains and longer travel times. It is unfortunate hand dealt, but it isn't going to get better soon. I have a gut feeling this winter is going to be extremely bad for this portion of the railroad.

Even if there were more slots for more NEC runs Amtrak doesn't have the equipment to do so. A better short term solution would be simply to lengthen all NY-BOS Regionals to 9-10 cars upon transfer of more Amfleets from CA and the Midwest. Doesn't add more frequencies, but adds a good deal of seating capacity. And for the record the South Station platforms have plenty of space for longer trains. Back in the 1990s after the platforms were high-leveled it wasn't uncommon to see 2 F40s pulling 9 or more cars.

Rockingham Racer wrote:I think the OP has a point about poor "business travel" service though. He's correct to say it does not allow for a full business day in Beantown, but rather an abbreviated amount of time for getting work / meetings done in a single day.

Here's some ifs and a conclusion: If Acela caters to business travelers, and if Boston's business base is growing, and if Acela's contribution to the bottom line is better than a Regional, then cut one Regional during the day, and add a 6:30 PM departure from Boston to terminate at Penn Station.

I think Amtrak has recognized this as well and is why they're planning to add an extra 5 NY-Boston Acela RTs per day by 2030. "Inland Route" service would become two-seater (transfer @ NHV to/from BOS via Hartford and SPG) supplementary Regional runs. Which given the capacity constraints that exist and will exist for some time even after B&A/CSX improvements and added sidings/trackage on the NEC that sounds like a decent tradeoff. It could only begin to force the issue of a dedicated HSR ROW even more down the road.

RockinghamRacer, yes, a 6:30 departure would be perfect.

NH2060, that's great that there will be more Acela...by 2030?!

Is there no spare Acela that could just be a 6:30 Boston-Philadelphia trip, for example?

west point wrote:Have heard all sorts of theory on the 39 train limit.
1. Was the 39 limit agreed to before Acela ? !9 round trips a day with just regionals would seem to be sufficient. Acela added in causes bunching of departures and arrivals not considered.
2. Amtrak may have thought that 39 number would be sufficient for ridership figures that guessers thought possible. Bad guessing. Amtrak may have never thought 39 would happen.
3. How many trips did Amtrak originally have when the 39 limit was agreed to ?
4. Amtrak may not have considered that BOS south station was platform limited to 9 cars ?
5. Any other ?

1) No
2) Yes, they did.
3) 41
4) As I indicated to you on the other board, BOS's platforms are not limited to 9 cars. Tracks 7,8,9, and 10 can get the job done. If they are willing to foul 12 for a period of time, they can also use 11 track.
5) The Coast Guard, DEP and Amtrak compromised on the limit because none of you have mentioned that the CDOTs also need slots to NLC, which adds to the amount of traffic over the bridges. With that, Amtrak actually cut a round trip to comply with the regulations. They were bourne out of the amount of time needed to assure the boats had enough time with the bridge in the raised position. The regulations are subject to renegotiation in 2018. The Thames River and Niantic River bridges have both been replaced since these regulations were put into place. Perhaps that will aid in the easing some of the restrictions.

Rockingham Racer wrote:I think the OP has a point about poor "business travel" service though. He's correct to say it does not allow for a full business day in Beantown, but rather an abbreviated amount of time for getting work / meetings done in a single day.

Here's some ifs and a conclusion: If Acela caters to business travelers, and if Boston's business base is growing, and if Acela's contribution to the bottom line is better than a Regional, then cut one Regional during the day, and add a 6:30 PM departure from Boston to terminate at Penn Station.

Amtrak used to run a 6:40pm Acela out of Boston. We kind of covered the pitfalls of why it was cancelled in the Amtrak adds Acela RT - Nightly Premium Service thread. As for reinstating it and cutting regional, there is no balance.

The same goes if Amtrak reinstated 2191. You'd need a train to operate to BOS to balance the equipment. I'd love to see 2122 extended to BOS. However, there is exactly 1 bridge slot left after you count the P&W freight operations into account.

So, it isn't a matter of cutting one train to add another. You could cut a round trip regional and add a round trip Acela but I don't see that happening for the reasons mentioned in the Nightly Premium service thread.

Hopefully, 2018 will yield more slots.

Then, all you have to deal with is Metro-North. Their slots also come at a premium. To accommodate the new Saturday round trip, they had to alter the schedule of two regional trains in order to satisfy Metro-North. Before that happened, Amtrak had to work with CSX and NS to see if they could accommodate a schedule change for the trains on their respective territories. If any one of the railroads involved said no (and it took a great deal of time for this get approved) this new round trip as designed wouldn't have occurred.

There's times like this I sort of wish one of the trans-Sound Bridge/tunnel ideas had come to fruition.

As much as I love CT, bypassing large portions of it sort of make sense.

Greg Moore wrote:There's times like this I sort of wish one of the trans-Sound Bridge/tunnel ideas had come to fruition.

As much as I love CT, bypassing large portions of it sort of make sense.

Well, Amtrak wants to bypass the Shore Line too, as previously addressed... it's just the amount of capital required to build a new HSR corridor is incredibly high, no matter what option you pick. A Long Island Sound crossing was one of the options they evaluated when trying to determine what the best routing for such a corridor would be, though, but it wasn't their winning option.

As far as slots on the East Lyme Draw, is there a restriction of only one train at a time on the bridge? I've spent a lot of time watching trains out on the boardwalk on the East Lyme side, and I've yet to see two trains running in opposing directions across the bridge at the same time. When the time inevitably comes to finally replace the bridge, that might be a boon right out of the gate, to get more trains over in the same time slot.

As it stands, the last four weekday departures from BOS are as follows:
As the most visible train-nerd in my circle of friends, I do hear plenty of complaints that there isn't a reasonable option for getting out of Boston at the end of a full work day and still get to their destinations in or around New York or Philadelphia at a reasonable time. (Washington is a lost cause; there just aren't enough hours to get a reasonable schedule out over the current NEC, so those people are going to fly unless and until sleepers are restored to 66/67.) The complaints become especially acute from those who work anywhere in metropolitan Boston other than the Financial District or Back Bay (say, in Cambridge), or those who need to rendezvous with partners and/or children after work before leaving. Maybe this market isn't as big (certainly not as big-spending) as the market for those who can consistently get out of their offices at 15:00 for a BOS departure at 16:00, but it still hurts to see Amtrak having to leave market share on the table thanks to the CT bridge agreements.

I do hope the next revision in 2018 allows for more slots on the corridor, and a provision for evaluating *when* those bridge closings are, to account for the actual disruption caused, especially in off-hours, because the status quo is *perverse*.

Is there any way to estimate how many trips Amtrak could reasoanably run between BOS and NYP? In other words, what would the ideal number look like?

I know its impossible to know for sure, just curious given the possibility of the Inland Route providing a high capacity alternative to the Shoreline.

Bob Roberts wrote:Is there any way to estimate how many trips Amtrak could reasoanably run between BOS and NYP? In other words, what would the ideal number look like?

I know its impossible to know for sure, just curious given the possibility of the Inland Route providing a high capacity alternative to the Shoreline.

Not sure what you're asking. The number they can run is.. what they're running.

The Inland Route has its own constraints with CSX.

If you're asking how big is the market? Hard to say.

ThirdRail7 wrote: 5) The Coast Guard, DEP and Amtrak compromised on the limit because none of you have mentioned that the CDOTs also need slots to NLC, which adds to the amount of traffic over the bridges. With that, Amtrak actually cut a round trip to comply with the regulations. They were bourne out of the amount of time needed to assure the boats had enough time with the bridge in the raised position. The regulations are subject to renegotiation in 2018. The Thames River and Niantic River bridges have both been replaced since these regulations were put into place. Perhaps that will aid in the easing some of the restrictions.
....
Hopefully, 2018 will yield more slots.

Then, all you have to deal with is Metro-North. Their slots also come at a premium. To accommodate the new Saturday round trip, they had to alter the schedule of two regional trains in order to satisfy Metro-North. Before that happened, Amtrak had to work with CSX and NS to see if they could accommodate a schedule change for the trains on their respective territories. If any one of the railroads involved said no (and it took a great deal of time for this get approved) this new round trip as designed wouldn't have occurred.

Ok, good, so the current SLE constraints are up for renegotiation in 2018.

With regards to MNRR and CDOT, the catenary replacement project is supposed to be completed by the Spring of 2017. That will get one long running modernization project which has cut segments of the route back to 3 or 2 tracks for extended periods out of the way. Which could help in getting Amtrak trip times over the New Haven line at least back to where they were a few years ago. OTOH, the Walk bridge replacement is supposed to begin construction in 2017 or 2018 and I don't know how disruptive that project will be to MNRR and Amtrak operations. Inserting a pair of 2 track bridges is going to be a challenge given how close buildings are to the MNRR ROW there. The result of the track and catenary projects along with the problems found in the aftermath of the derailment has been that the Acela BOS-NYP trip times have gotten longer and ever further away from the various goals of 3:20, 3:15, 3:08, and a very long way from the one time goal of 3 hours between NYP and BOS. That the ridership and demand have held up with the slower trip times indicate that an Acela II (with ~425 seats) and a 3:20 or 3:15 trip time should sell a lot of seats.

The success of the Acela - and the politically connected business travelers that utilize it - should provide Amtrak some additional leverage for the negotiations over additional trains over the SLE. While there is a new higher clearance bridge at Niantic, the CT River bridge replacement is one of many projects competing for funding. Don't know whether the plans for building a new CT River bridge would have any effect on the 2018 negotiations.