The first trainset prototype will be ready for testing later this year and will enter revenue service in 2021, with all trainsets in service in 2022. The new trains will provide world-class accommodations and amenities, along with a smoother and even more comfortable ride. Each train will have more seats than the current Acela trains, with spacious, high-end comfort customers expect, including personal outlets, USB ports and adjustable reading lights at every seat. Additional features include:
Contemporary food service, offering easy access and greater selection
• Advanced seat reservation system;
• Onboard information system providing real time information such as location, train speed, and conductor announcements;
• Accessibility features for people with disabilities;
• Spacious restrooms with a 60-inch diameter turning radius;
• Streamlined overhead luggage compartment;
• Cutting-edge safety systems to provide real-time monitoring and ensure a safe and comfortable ride;
• Interior safety details include handles integrated into the seatbacks to aid customers walking through the train, grab bars for stability and gap fillers to cover the space between the train and the platform, creating a smooth surface for entering and exiting the train.
— An Amtrak news release. June 13, 2019.
Robert,
What’s ugly about a (duck-billed) platypus? As a life-long Sydney-sider, I have only ever seen a platypus once in the wild – January, 1988 – in a creek at Nimbin, in northern New South Wales. Plus the occasional echidna, including in a suburb on the north side of Sydney after it having crossing the Pacific Highway one night noticed by one of our sons and daughters.
Wilko the retired Engo
This is all well and good, meantime If I wanted to travel Amtrak from Jacksonville, Fla to Los Angeles,CA I have to take three different trains to get there.
There were no notable New England hurricanes in 1936. The storm your correspondents are thinking of was the hurricane of September 21, 1938. I lived in Rhode Island back then, and we had no warning of what was coming.. I remember walking home from school that afternoon, thinking that it was raining pretty hard- and that I had never seen trees fall over like that. And that was just the beginning.
Just unbelievable. Every new passenger power unit in this country is uglier than the last.
I am happy for the NEC benefits. The only benefit for the original high and wide route from NY to Chicago is that these are being built in Hornell, NY. (Maybe Silk Road Transport will deliver them on trucks, so they will not have to be delivered by rail over southern tier rails). The only benefit to the rest of the country will be the great “World Class” photos.
The need for this service and new equipment is real, however, justification of the cost to the balance of the populace in the US is difficult. This debate is always fun to open, but will never be resolved in my lifetime. So pick you topic from above as I have laid down a few teasers for debate.
It’s a bird…it’s a plane. No, it’s a…train??? How unattractive.
The nose looks like a duck-billed platypus….Ugly!.
1- All trains stopping at New London, CT, station? No, Acelas cruise there in the sharp curve at 40-50 mph. Check the Amtrak schedule or go trackside, a beautiful spot.
2- Compulsory reservation. We have known it in France since the inception of TGVs, then on Eurostar and Thalys. Not always the best experience, I agree. Reservation is possible on German ICEs or British Intercity trains, but not compulsory.
Beautiful new high speed trains on an antiquated railroad! What’s the point. Other than the need for new bridges, tunnels, etc, the corridor as of yet has not completed installing constant tension catenary (still running with mostly 1930’s technology). And let’s not forget the ridiculous bottleneck between Shell interlocking and New Haven on Metro North. I can’t wait to see the new trains crawling along at 50 mph. Seems to me, infrastructure needs are far more important than new trains.
Charles, we wouldn’t even have global warming if Al Gore hadn’t invented it. The environmentalists should be very thankful for him. The rest of us will just have to continue paying for this fantasy.
No link or inclusion of the rest of the pictures?
So HERB – What are you saying? That Global Warming is a myth? Your post about the 1936 hurricane in southern New England almost proves that it is. (a) Superstorm Sandy is a rare event but not unprecednted. The same thing happened in New York/ New Jersey at the dawn of European immigration. Long before the first SUV or coal-fired power plant. (b) In New England, hurricanes come and go. In bunches. You see a few hurricanes over a 2-4 year period, then nothing for decades. (c) The 1936 New England hurricane followed a period of warming after the mini-Ice Age of the late 19th Century. Then after 1936 (despite continued and rapidly rising burning of coal) the Earth cooled again for about fifty years. The Earth has been warming and cooling for no known reason for as long as the Earth has existed. (d) Other phenomen exist that can’t be explained by our politicized “scientists”. Like the rise and the fall of the Great Lakes. When the Lakes were low, Detroit built a subdivision on canals off Lake St. Clair looking like Holland. Then the Lakes rose, necessitate sandbag dikes behind each house. Then the water level ebbed for a few years, now it’s high again.
There is a grade crossing in New London and another in Mystic, CT.
Its actually harder to go fast close to the ground then high up in the air. Every high speed train I have seen throughout the world have aero profiled noses. I am sure all you arm chair engineers have done your wind tunnel testing on your various designs. And no, the NEC does not have any grade crossing to worry about trucks on the rails.
Randal, I believe there are no grade crossings on the NEC where these will run. perhaps someone can verify.
Has anyone seen old photos of the NH after the 1936 hurricain? . It took over 3 weeks to patch up the line enough to provide limited service. There is going t/ come a time when something like Sandy hits along the connecticut shoreline with similar results. Then people will lament the demise of the old New York and New England and its Hartford routing. Something to think about while listening to politicos extoll spending multiple billions on new Hudson tunnels the Acelas will run on. I know–I’m a spoil-sport reminding people of little neccessities while the baubles and glitz are in the limelight. Sorry for those offended.
I love the Acela and use it frequently in the NEC. This is the way rail transportation should be. Not cramped uncomfortable sleeping cars and diners serving unhealthy, flavorless food. 2021 can’t come soon enough for me. But one thing worries me about the supposed “amenities”. That is the seat reservation system. This has been instituted on Acela First Class and it is no good. For all the money I pay I should be able to sit where I want to sit and not where Amtrak tells me to sit. On a recent trip to Boston from Philadelphia my wife and I were forced to sit across a table from another couple of people who I would never choose to sit with. Total jerks from the beginning to the end of the trip. Dressed and acted like the slobs they were. Thankfully they got off in New York. I was offered an opportunity to change my seat assignment when I booked but the location of the seats were fine but the occupants were the problem and you don’t know who are going to be sitting with until you are on board.
These are the only trains Mr Anderson want to operate any other states wanting service are suppose to pay for it themselves so amtrak can overcharge for them & skim the balance for the NEC in addition to those same taxpayers paying for the NEC too!
They cater to commuter trains buy how about long distance trains .
And just what does “contemporary food service” mean? It doesn’t sound appetizing to me.
There’s crash management apparatus underneath that nose shell…that’s what will prevent the scenario Randal Toth offers up…most likely what happens is the truck gets sliced in half.
There are still 11 active grade crossings in CT on the NEC, all in New London County.
The only grade crossing I’m aware of is at New London, CT directly alongside the station, where all trains stop. No problem there!
Advanced seat reservations! Finally. An easy win for Amtrak. Hopefully, they’ll spread it to the rest of the reserved trains later.
No grade crossings between NYC and Washington. Some grade crossings on former NH territory.