wxguy

Last evening, Amtrak's Chris Jagodzinski presented, "An Inside Look at the Next-Generation Acela" during a meeting of the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts. It was recorded and may now be viewed on their website, www.massbayrre.org -- click "meetings."

It's a terrific presentation, and provides a wealth of information!

Long Train Runnin

Thanks for posting!

Can't wait to get a ride onboard.

physioprof

CHOO! CHOO!!!!

bowdenj

Thanks for links!

sxpsxpsxp

Well I certainly wasn't expecting a nearly 2-hour-long presentation, nor was I expecting to be glued to my screen watching it... But here I was. Thank you for sharing.

I was able to crank up the playback speed to 1.5x and in some cases 2x in YouTube to speed it up a bit.

So... The seats will be fixed, which means a lot more of us will be riding backwards. They say the surveys they've done show only about 15% of passengers dislike that. I definitely fall into that 15%. This is a bit disappointing form my perspective.

AndyPatterson

Thanks -- I was turned off by the 2 hour length, but didn't realize you could speed it up.

More importantly, somehow I had never noticed or thought about the seats being bi-directional! Should have realized that -- when the train gets to the end station, obviously it doesn't turn around on a turntable but the conductor has to go through and flip all the seats, other than those with a table. Learn something new every day...

Longboater

Had a lengthy conversation with the FC attendant while traveling NYP-WAS this weekend. He said right now, the new Acela trainsets are tentatively scheduled to be introduced this October. Before the pandemic, Amtrak had expected to introduce these trainsets as early as right around now. He has been on the new trainset that is testing the NJ speedway right now. (There was some 165 mph testing in MA/RI earlier this month.) He said the interior is going to be a massive improvement over the current fleet. Also, he said that right now Amtrak looks to have a total of a 15 minute time reduction between WAS and NYP with the new trainset. That "tilting" issue on the old fleet has been fixed also Amtrak does anticipate operating around 160 mph on the NJ speedway, as they have repeatedly been testing the trainsets going 165 mph. So, eventually that non-stop WAS-NYP will return and it could do the route in 2 hours 15 minutes. Not to get too close to OMNI territory, the Biden infrastructure plan has allocated $39 billion to the NEC, which would bring the entire 457-mile line to a state of good repair and capacity, i.e. four tracks between Landover and Halethorpe, MD with all four tracks accessing BWI so eliminating that change of track around Odenton, constant tension catenary wire for every single mile of the NEC, Gateway, new Baltimore tunnel, etc. That money would translate into a fifteen-minute reduction to a non-stop WAS-NYP, bringing to Amtrak's goal of a two-hour trip. While it still is relatively slow as compared to the Eurostar between London and Paris, which averages 135 mph between the two cities, it is much more in-line with comparable with other services in Western Europe. Now if Amtrak wanted to reduce it a further half hour down to an hour and a half, then the price tag gets more expensive. But they have stated the ultimate goal is to have these trainsets going 186 mph (300 km/h) on certain portions of the NEC.

physioprof

Thank you for posting that!!! I sure hope these things really do happen!!!

wxguy

During the Amtrak presentation referenced in the first post, the Amtrak official who was questioned said that FRA acceptance would be "early 2022." Therefore I suspect the FC attendant you spoke with has old information, and we should not expect to ride a new set until at least first quarter 2022.