Originally Posted by
NYCommuter
Why is Amtrak late, when it is?
*Congestion- both on the Northeast Corridor and on freight railroad lines; there just isn't enough track capacity for all of the trains (and some freight railroads think that the payments from Amtrak aren't enough to make it worthwhile to divert freight traffic, despite contracts in place about priority)
* Deteriorating infrastructure in the Northeast- e.g., the catenary is outdated and is prone to failure
* Aging locomotives on some routes (AEM-7s, and some others)
If Amtrak were adequately funded, these problems wouldn't happen.
All of the issues you list were also true a year ago when Acela was consistently hitting a 80%+ on-time rate. Something else has changed. The standard "not enough money" reason may not really be a valid excuse for what is happening to Acela lately.
Below is the on-time rate for Acela for July through 7/20 with a 10-minute tolerance (the results in July 2009 are in parentheses):
BOS-NYP: 57.5% (73.8%)
NYP-BOS: 45.8% (78.5%)
NYP-WAS: 71.0% (87.9%)
WAS-NYP: 82.4% (92.7%)
The BOS-NYP and NYP-BOS section has been a real problem in July with 22 trips arriving over an hour late, and another 6 cancelled outright (out of 306 trips). That's about a 1 in 10 chance of having a major issue with Acela on the north end.
Amtrak's goal for Acela is 92% on-time with a 10-minute tolerance. They are coming up a little short so far in July.