This article appearing in The
Times yesterday, is certainly foreboding to any commercial transportation operator (and lodging/hospitality to boot), there is one passage that potentially relates adversely to the Acela 21:
Fair Use:
Some experts argue that corporate travel may never fully recover, with many in-person meetings permanently replaced by video conferences and phone calls. Travel for sales meetings, conventions and trade shows is least likely to be permanently affected, IdeaWorks, an industry consulting firm, said in a December report. But shorter trips to meet with co-workers for a few hours — from New York to Washington, say — could be hit harder, it concluded..
NY-Wash isn't that the market that Acela recaptured from the airlines becoming the dominant carrier and contributed greatly to the only profitable chunk of Amtrak?
Regretably. I concur with those experts, the post-COVID business world will be forever changed. Commuter rail will sell more Ten Rides than Monthlys as employers will only summon White Collar employees in for, say, a bi-weekly staff meeting. Otherwise, WFH will be the "new norm".
I'm sure starting right with The Times, with Washington Bureau reporters being summoned to NY and hoping on the Acela for three uninterrupted work hours it offers, to meet with Executive Editors regarding a story, have now found that Zoom works well enough.
How about the Manhattan restaurants catering to the same crowd, or the $450/ni hotels? How about the office space that will be vacated as soon as leases are up?
The "workscape" will be forever changed.