wigstheone
Aug 14, 02, 8:03 am
WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 — Amtrak today suspended its new high-speed Acela, the pride of the struggling railroad's fleet, a few hours after finding cracks in a part designed to keep the locomotives from swaying. Most of the trains seem likely to be out of service for days or weeks.
The decision pushed thousands of riders onto slower, older trains traveling between Boston, New York and Washington — the Northeast Corridor — and was another blow to the railroad, which so far this year has been through two derailments and a cash crunch so severe that it threatened to close. The two wrecks, on lines to Chicago and Florida, did not involve the high-speed trains but left Amtrak so short of cars that it has had to cannibalize other trains to maintain its long-distance routes.
The Acela Express, introduced in December 2000, was one of Amtrak's few bright spots. After Sept. 11, the railroad said, the fast train helped Amtrak capture more passenger traffic than the airline shuttles in the Northeast. Conductors would sometimes joke that at its top speed, 150 miles an hour, the plush, quiet train was not running on the track but flying low. It trimmed about 20 minutes off the time between New York and Washington, about a half-hour from New York to Boston. Only old tracks kept it from going faster.
But recent equipment and reliability problems have forced the railroad to run only 15 of the 18 trains delivered so far. It keeps the other three in reserve. Still, Acela was well received by passengers willing to pay higher fares for premium service. As of last week there were 13 daily round-trips by Acelas, each with a capacity of 304 passengers, and many segments along the route were sold out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/14/national/14TRAI.html
The decision pushed thousands of riders onto slower, older trains traveling between Boston, New York and Washington — the Northeast Corridor — and was another blow to the railroad, which so far this year has been through two derailments and a cash crunch so severe that it threatened to close. The two wrecks, on lines to Chicago and Florida, did not involve the high-speed trains but left Amtrak so short of cars that it has had to cannibalize other trains to maintain its long-distance routes.
The Acela Express, introduced in December 2000, was one of Amtrak's few bright spots. After Sept. 11, the railroad said, the fast train helped Amtrak capture more passenger traffic than the airline shuttles in the Northeast. Conductors would sometimes joke that at its top speed, 150 miles an hour, the plush, quiet train was not running on the track but flying low. It trimmed about 20 minutes off the time between New York and Washington, about a half-hour from New York to Boston. Only old tracks kept it from going faster.
But recent equipment and reliability problems have forced the railroad to run only 15 of the 18 trains delivered so far. It keeps the other three in reserve. Still, Acela was well received by passengers willing to pay higher fares for premium service. As of last week there were 13 daily round-trips by Acelas, each with a capacity of 304 passengers, and many segments along the route were sold out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/14/national/14TRAI.html