Passenger Trains > DC to New York Express Acela announced

https://www.businessinsider.com/amtrak-new-acela-express-nonstop-new-york-to-washington-dc-2019-7

Service starts September 23rd.

Run time is 2h 35m with no intermediate stops.

I think they tried this before and realized that the slim time savings really didn't justify giving up the intermediate markets. Unlike Trenton or Metropark, station's like Philly don't even have some sort of faster bypass track for non-stop trains.  Given the size of the market they should probably have a single Philly stop.

They tried this a couple of times during the Metroliner era too. They enivitably have to start adding stops, and it falls apart. 

The business clientele will love these non-stop Acelas.  It fits the airline mind-set of most Acela riders perfectly.

Nobody know this better than Anderson--who, from his Delta years, knows the mind set of this NY-Was. crowd.

That 4:30pm Northbound train should be a knock-out because, the 3-to-5pm hour Acelas are extremely popular.

(At last! - a positive move by Anderson,)

 

ronald321 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The business clientele will love these non-stop
> Acelas.  It fits the airline mind-set of most
> Acela riders perfectly.
>
> Nobody know this better than Anderson--who, from
> his Delta years, knows the mind set of this
> NY-Was. crowd.
>
> That 4:30pm Northbound train should be a knock-out
> because, the 3-to-5pm hour Acelas are extremely
> popular.
>
> (At last! - a positive move by Anderson,)
>
Anderson is merely resurrecting an old idea that's never panned out. These non-stops have been tried before, all the way back to the Penn Central Metroliner era.** They've never been successful, aside from offering an initial flurry of publicity, and end up being withdrawn.

**Penn Central's schedule was 2:30

Paul Wilson
Arlington, VA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/19 09:48 by Dcmcrider.

Amtrak has not been successful in attracting sufficient passengers for WAS-NYP express service in the past, but Anderson/Gardner define ‘success’ differently than past regimes. It won’t matter to them if these trains carry fewer passengers than a typical Acela as long as they bring in more revenue, which can probably be achieved in these time slots via higher base fares or yield management adjustments to reduce the availability of low bucket fares. Whether their strategy of aggressive pricing at the expense of lost customers will pan out in the long run is anybody’s guess.

I’ve always wondered why Amtrak hasn’t pursued adding stops to the Regional trains to further differentiate them from the Acelas, and increase their utility to suburban travelers. Why not regularly stop at Princeton Junction, Aberdeen, and other stations that currently have limited service? As is, the difference in running time NYP-WAS doesn’t make a compelling case for paying a premium for Acela service. Several business travel departments I’ve worked with always put employees on Regionals for this reason.

Anderson/Gardner management have no institutional memory, therefore cannot foresee this will fail. 

Service planners for years disliked Princeton Jct as they want to differentiate themselves from NJT, and regard NJ as a flyover state. When they killed 67% of service at PJC about 8 years ago, 33% of its business went away too. It didn't pop-up at Trenton.  Amtrak does not understand the Mercer County market. However, they are all too happy to stop at New Rochelle AND Stamford AND Bridgeport, which gets far more Metro North service. 

It wouldn't really take any time to stop a few trains at Secaucus, and have access to 1 million people from NJT suburbs to the north. So Amtrak winds up either crawling behind NJT or leap-frogging and delaying them 5 minutes. Then Amtrak bitches NJT is late. 

Amtrak's attitude is just drive to Metropark or Trenton - they don't care. 

How was the Penn Central time faster, if the acelas can do 135mph over portions of the route?

The 2007 non-stop Acela also had a 2h 35m travel time, and that was with a stop in Philly.

timetables.org/full.php?group=20071029&item=0045

Here is a TO post from that time: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1445789


And a TO post when service was cancelled:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1633613

Posted from iPhone



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/19 09:31 by chrsjrcj.

chrsjrcj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The 2007 non-stop Acela also had a 2h 35m travel
> time, and that was with a stop in Philly.
>
> timetables.org/full.php?group=20071029&item=0045
>
> Here is a TO post from that time:
> https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,
> 1445789
>
> Posted from iPhone

Probably greater use of ACSES and the mantitory cab signal drops that will likely never go away.

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anderson/Gardner management have no institutional
> memory, therefore cannot foresee this will
> fail. 
>
> Service planners for years disliked Princeton Jct
> as they want to differentiate themselves from NJT,
> and regard NJ as a flyover state. When they killed
> 67% of service at PJC about 8 years ago, 33% of
> its business went away too. It didn't pop-up at
> Trenton.  Amtrak does not understand the Mercer
> County market. However, they are all too happy to
> stop at New Rochelle AND Stamford AND Bridgeport,
> which gets far more Metro North service. 
>
> It wouldn't really take any time to stop a few
> trains at Secaucus, and have access to 1 million
> people from NJT suburbs to the north. So Amtrak
> winds up either crawling behind NJT or
> leap-frogging and delaying them 5 minutes. Then
> Amtrak bitches NJT is late. 
>
> Amtrak's attitude is just drive to Metropark or
> Trenton - they don't care. 

The problem is that our country has this unhealthy obcession with one seat rides.  The model used in Europe involves people taking local trains to express stops and transfering to express trains. We need to make local services frequent and reliable so that passengers can think nothing of taking NJT to Amtrak as part of a unified journey.

inCHI Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How was the Penn Central time faster, if the
> acelas can do 135mph over portions of the route?

Because it's average speed that matters, not maximum speed? Whether PC was able to achieve 2:30 reliably, I don't know. Wasn't around then.

 

Paul Wilson
Arlington, VA

Heard about this on the NYC news radio station this morning.  They emphasized that the new non stop Acela will only be 15 minutes faster than the ones that make stops.

mbrotzman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> joemvcnj Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------- 
> >
> > Amtrak's attitude is just drive to Metropark or
> > Trenton - they don't care. 
>
> The problem is that our country has this unhealthy
> obcession with one seat rides.  The model used in
> Europe involves people taking local trains to
> express stops and transfering to express trains.
> We need to make local services frequent and
> reliable so that passengers can think nothing of
> taking NJT to Amtrak as part of a unified journey.

Poorly coordinated schedules, no through-ticketing, and a lack of guaranteed connections between the carriers. I can't imagine why anyone would avoid that like the plague.

Yours truly has done some of these treks on occasion, like Metuchen to DC via NJT, SEPTA, and (finally) Amtrak from PHL. A true cheapskate would have caught Amtrak at Wilmington, but I'm not that cheap...

Paul Wilson
Arlington, VA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/19 09:54 by Dcmcrider.

Rush hour air service may spend as much time on the ground in Newark as they do in the air to DC.

Been there done that.

This could be a plus for Amtrak. I'm glad to see them looking at revenue enhancement.

Posted from Android

I think this could work in today's environment.   There are all kinds of time-consuming events if one flies between NYC and WAS.   Getting to/from LGA/DCA,  TSA,  ATC delays once on the plane, etc.   Just charge a high fare for the non-stop, no discounts,  and the revenue should be quite good. Just taxi or car service from the office to the station at either end, hop on the train and off you go.   This market is for business people and there are a lot of them,  mostly on expense accounts who couldn't care less what it costs.  Worth a try in my opinion.

Business expense accounts are closely watched and limited, such as to which class of travel, and airport to use. My former Fortune 100 employer for a while abourt 10 years ago banned use of the Greenville, SC airport for the Greenville, SC residing employees. They had to rent a car or drive to Charlotte. Not like it used to be. 

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Business expense accounts are closely watched and
> limited, such as to which class of travel, and
> airport to use. My former Fortune 100 employer for
> a while abourt 10 years ago banned use of the
> Greenville, SC airport for the Greenville, SC
> residing employees. They had to rent a car or
> drive to Charlotte. Not like it used to be.

Amtrak travel is often an adventure for the business traveller.  Our automated business travel reservation system only handles air travel or rental car or personal car travel - no trains.  I check the Amtrak fare and as long as it is less than or equal to air travel they don't question it.  Many times Acela first class is a little less than the airfare.

My question, is this an additional departure, or just making an existing train a non-stop.   ?

If its not additional, then I see it as a failure as in all the past attempts.

Tired it on the Los Angeles - San Diego, two times, failed each time.

mundo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My question, is this an additional departure, or
> just making an existing train a non-stop.   ?
>
> If its not additional, then I see it as a failure
> as in all the past attempts.
>
> Tired it on the Los Angeles - San Diego, two
> times, failed each time.

Additional. The southbound departs NYP at 6:35 (regular Acelas at 6:00 and 7:00). Northbound 4:30 (regular Acela departures at 3:50 and 4:50.)

Paul Wilson
Arlington, VA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/19 12:07 by Dcmcrider.