AMTRAK'S TILT PROBLEM

How was your travel this holiday weekend?

If you’re one of the 82 million Americans who traveled at least 50 miles for Thanksgiving, perhaps some of you opted for Amtrak instead of driving.  Our nation’s passenger railroad estimates a six percent boost in ridership this year, as Amtrak’s growth and popularity continues.

Not that taking the train is cheap:  a one-way, last-minute fare from Stamford to Washington DC on Thanksgiving day was as much as $400 on one train!  It’s a matter of demand exceeding supply.  Still, Amtrak is proud of these fares which, nationwide have seen the railroad increase overall revenues by 10%.

Aside from worsening highway traffic and delays, why chose the train instead of driving?  Because the investment in its infrastructure is finally paying off with better service.

Stations are being improved, crucial bridges (like the Walk Bridge in South Norwalk) are being reconstructed, new tunnels are being built, tracks and overhead power lines replaced.  You can see the improvements as you travel.

And then there’s the new equipment.

Amtrak’s long expected (and four years delayed) NextGen Acela is turning eyes as it whooshes up and down the corridor.  It’s a really sweet train, with only five sets in service so far but with 23 more sets to come by 2027.  But these sleek new trains are having problems, especially between New Haven and Providence, one of the ‘curviest’ parts of the Northeast.

Fast trains abhor curves.  While the new Acela can go as fast as 160 mph, it can do so only on about 40 super-straight miles of its 450 mile journey from Washington to Boston.  In the rest of Connecticut it can go no faster than Metro-North.

In fact, the new Acela is slower than the old Acela, especially from New Haven to Providence.  The reason?  Tilting, or lack thereof.

To handle all the curves in Connecticut, Acela is designed to automatically tilt into the curves, maintaining speed without having passengers’ beverages sliding off their tray-tables into their laps.

But because the NextGen Acela is still awaiting final certification by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), it’s limited in how much it can tilt into curves.  That means that, between Providence and New Haven, the new Acela takes ten minutes longer than the older models, worsening those supposedly-faster trains’ on-time performance.

Because our tracks in Connecticut are older and placed closer to together than in other parts of the corridor, the tight clearances between passing trains could cause a problem… especially if two passing trains should both be tilting in the wrong direction and sideswipe each other.

As the NextGen Acelas prove their reliability and improvements are made to our tracks, it’s expected that the FRA will lift some restrictions and all the new trains will ultimately operate at maximum efficiency.

With more and faster trains, the increase in available seats may lead to lower fares.  But what Amtrak really needs is competition… the topic for another story.