Originally Posted by PHLGovFlyer

I agree that east coast connections to PHL for a TATL flight can be a crapshoot.

Interesting concept about direct Amtrak service to PHL. I did a bit of digging, and it should be physically possible to drive an Acela train to PHL airport over the SEPTA right of way today. There are actually two connection points from the Amtrak main line(s) south of Philadelphia to the SEPTA Airport line rails. The electricity driving both SEPTA and Amtrak trains is compatible at 12kV/25Hz (and for the real railroad geeks there may even be an existing phase break at one or both of the two rail connections, though I'm not 100% certain).

The real challenge would be timing, since the distance from the Amtrak mainline connection to PHL over the SEPTA rails is about 5.5 miles, and the train would need to stop at all four PHL airport stops. A round trip stub from Amtrak's main line to PHL and back would easily add 25 minutes to an Acela trip from NYC to WAS. It might work well as a stub to a southbound Acela trip from NYC that would otherwise terminate at 30th street, but there are almost none of those on Amtrak's schedule.

An alternative would be to build a dedicated AirTrain system similar to the one at EWR connecting Amtrak to PHL. The issue there is that the closest points where a viable right of way exists, or could be acquired, puts the connection with Amtrak at least 5 miles from PHL. So the cost would be substantial, and the time saved versus just using SEPTA from the 30th Street Station in Philly wouldn't be that great. Essentially, SEPTA out of 30th Street is already PHL's "AirTrain".