The northeast is where Amtrak actually works. The whole rest of the system is unreliable and slow. If your in the northeast Amtrak is the way more reliable and lower stress option than flying. City center to city center access is also amazing convenience
It's the unfortunate reality. Amtrak is a great system when they actually own the tracks, but as soon as they move to freight tracks, they get pushed around to fit the needs of the freight companies.
Amtrak is an awesome company that actually cares about the people, but they are underfunded and freight railroads just suck. The California and some Midwest services are also great, cascades service is great too.
One correction. The Acela menus rotate every three weeks among a rotation of three menus and then those three menus get replaced with three new ones every three months.
Can't wait for the new Avelia Liberty trains. I alternate between riding the Acela and the northeast regional trains. I still enjoy the old Amfleet cars, They feel cozy.
I took the Acela from DC to 128 this past June, ended up ordering the soufflé twice once between WAS and NYP and then between NYP and 128 it was that good!
the NY to DC section is hands down faster than flying, the NY to Beantown is slower but without the hassle of getting out to the airport and the airport security mess, but the combination of the two is an all day trip and is both faster and cheaper by plane.
Travelled with Amtrak from New York - Boston various times, even one time from arriving Kennedy airport, then the train to Pennstation and then take the Amtrak to Boston. Always very quiet, relaxed and efficient arriving in Boston.
Nice video! This really does look like the most "european" train trip you can have in the US. One thing I noticed though which confused me a little. Over here I'm used to just walking out onto the platform whenever I like in time to catch my train. In your video it looked like all passengers were herded to the platform from the main hall. Is that a Penn Station thing (narrow, dark platforms), or is this a general thing in US train stations? 🤔
The herding of passengers is mainly a northeast thing, and within that, only at major stations. I think it's more to prevent people from wandering down to the platforms, but I'm not entirely sure.
It’s mostly a NY thing. The platforms are quite small/narrow and it’s a very busy station. They want the people getting off the train to clear off the platform before new people come down. Pretty much the entire train empties out at NY and a new group of people get on.
@@MatthewWunderlich I had a similar thing happen in Philadelphia when boarding, so I think it extends beyond just New York. Could be just for major stations along the corridor for the reasons you mentioned.
@@LonestarTrips in Boston that doesn’t really happen at Back Bay as far as I’m aware, though does kind of happen at North/South Station, though I’d imagine that has more to due with their status as termini
The same thing for NJ Transit. Stations that don't have a lot of tracks let you know what track your train will be on before it gets there (Newark Airport, for example), or in most stations the only track that the train will ever be on. In major stations, with lots of tracks, or at the end of the line, where everybody gets off, they don't announce the track before it gets there, so the passengers can exit, and the passengers getting on line up to get down to the platform. In Union Station, in Chicago they do the same thing. In the old Penn Station, NJ Transit passengers would huddle around the screens in a dank hall one level down and as soon as your train showed on the board, you made a dash to the track. Haven't been to Moynihan yet (just missed the opening), but it looks a much better experience than Penn Station. Nicely done video.
Just started watching. So you know something about New York City and the Moynihan Station that was introduced. THERE ARE NO BENCHES TO SIT DOWN ON. THEY DON'T WANT THE HOMELESS SLEEPING IN THE STATION SO NO BENCHWS JUST WIDE OPEN SPACE. FOR ME AS A SENIOR THAT SUCKS.
This has to be the greatest fallback of Moynihan. There is a large seating area for ticketed passengers off to the side of the main hall, but it's not signed particularly well, and doesn't give access to many of the amenities of the station, so it's not a great place to wait.
@@LonestarTrips You should take the MBTA Commuter Rail From North Station to Salem, MA. It is 30 minutes by commuter rail. The commuter Rail has different Lines. The line that goes to Salem is the Newburyport/Rockport Line which goes to the North Shore through Salem. Enjoy!
I had a good look thanks. In order for Acela to run faster than it is now, the Northeast Main Line needs to be speeded up, but the answer is to build a dedicated high-speed train line between Washington DC-New York-Providence.(When upgrading existing railroads, there must be absolutely no railroad crossings in all areas.) If you have to make it underground inevitably along the existing route along the beach, you have to boldly make it an underground route. In addition, the routes are extended to Ottawa-Scranton-Maryland-Washington D.C., Providence-Portland-Bangor-Holton, and Washington D.C-Richmond-Goldsboro-Wilton. . Washington D.C-Charlotte-Atlanta-New Orleans-Galveston-Corpus Christi-Mexico City-Acapulco I hope that the high-speed rail will be built to make Washington D.C-Mexico City faster and closer. For the success of the high-speed rail construction in the USA!
Great video. We spent the month of May in Malden MA and we went for a 2-day-stay in NYC traveling with Amtrak (but the regular one - Acela is way out of our league hahaha). It was good to see all the scenery again. Thanks for sharing.
@@rohenmckenzie5866 It was great! The last time I'd been there was in 2002. My friends' kids are grown-ups now. I found Malden busier than it used to be - there's even a traffic light at the corner of their street...
I was Conductor on Acela trains from when they were first introduced in 2001 until I retired n 2015. The train sets are not mechanically sound and the ride is very rough, bumpy and jerky. Indeed, Acela trains jump all over the track when running at 150mph top speed in Rhode Island. Most Amtrak engineers, conductors, onboard crews, and managers I've worked with hate the trains. Within the first few years of operations all train sets were taken out of service for extended periods of times because of safety issues while Amtrak and Bombardier battled it out playing the blame game. AEM7 (Swedish Meatballs) and Amfleet cars covered Acela schedules despite lower speeds. I hope new Acela trains sets live up to the hype and offer passengers a fast, smooth, and reliable ride. I already don't like the smaller windows. Meanwhile I will be flying to Germany next month for a real high speed ride on ICE trains.
All food and beverages in the Metropolitan Longe should be free given the sky high first class and sleeper fares. After visiting Virgin Atlantic's first class lounge at Heathrow everything pales in comparison, especially Amtrak's Metropolitan Lounge. I am not impressed with the decor or food selection. Some of that prepackaged stuff is on the menu in Amtrak cafe cars.
Remember the competition for Acela is US airlines’ first class product operating up and down the northeast corridor and airlines don’t even offer lounge access on domestic first class tickets.
Nice video but I don't understand criticism of the food selection in the lounge. Not only is it mostly free, you get a free meal on the first class train. Other lounges only offer chips, cookies, popcorn and such. I've been to the one in New Orleans when they did not even serve coffee!
Since it’s 2024, I love the famous Amtrak Acela to me it’s Amtrak luxury train compare to the Amtrak’s Northeast regional train, on Train Sim World I operated the Acela its amazing I love it! 😊
Thanks for this - so nice to see my area in videos. One thing : the Thames river at New London is pronounced "Thaymes" rather than the British "Temms".
Very true and this is also one of the few times I have heard the bridge actually called the “Robert Kennedy Bridge,” even though that is its official named us New Yorkers still call it the “Triboro Bridge,” as do TV and radio stations.
I have taken Acela a number of times and in First Class. I don't like the seating. If you are traveling alone you could wind up sitting a in single seat facing a stranger or sitting at a table for 4 not knowing the other 3 people. In both cases the leg room is not good. The food is okay but not great. I am not sure it is truly worth the over $100 extra you pay for First Class. I still love the train though. The current Acela trains are getting rather long in the tooth with door panels banging away, and other things falling apart. Not sure why they don't fix this stuff!
Thanks for the informative video! I wonder how big the overhead cabins are? I have a relatively big luggage so not sure that fits? By the way, hows the general safety? Is it ok to leave my luggage unattended when i go to the washroom?
I know i am a little late to the game on this one but they are currently replacing the Walk bridge in Norwalk, Ct. as we speak. That is another over 100 year bridge that always gets stuck in the open position as well!
We celebrate going from Boston to New York 231 miles, in 3 hours and 46 minutes. The Eurostar can take you from London to Paris, 286 miles, in 2 hours and 18 minutes. Why is our country so far behind?
Hi! Thank you for your informative video. I will also be riding this route this year. I would be interested to know if there are any options for stowing larger luggage that doesn't fit in the upper storage compartments, e.g. suitcases? Do you know more about this?
@@newarknj76 Yes. Because of all the curves. The tracks follow the shoreline and property lines. Every straight section of track in CT you can see another curve ahead. Plus 5 moveable bridges. Because it’s so close to the shore line and the speeds are already limited, 11 road crossings still exist. But none of them are reason for the slower speeds. All the crossings happen to be in areas they already run slower anyhow.
AMTRAK sucks in California. We took an over night up the coast and we booked the private accommodation with toilet and shower. The door was duct taped shut. The heat didn't work and the entire train smelled like a porta-potty. The staff was helpless to fix anything. We were made to stand in a driving rainstorm to board the train, no covering. NEVER AGAIN AMTRAK. NEVER.
This is a great train and probably the panicle of American Rail way. But just because it can go 150mph doesn’t make it a bullet train. It only goes that fast in select areas and far slower in most areas which makes Accella more of an express train rather than high speed one. To put it into perspective a Shinkansen Bullet Train regularly travels 717km in 3 hours and 30 minutes which is nearly double the distance of the best that America can offer. It just means that America is a very long way from having a true bullet train. It’s not to say that Express trains are bad. Infact US needs more Accella service because trains are faster than cars and far more convenient than Air travel for short routes. But it’s time to put America back on top with true bullet trains that actually are fast.
Seems like an overall improvement for Amtrak however providing a dining car for 1st class would be something they could do to differentiate them from planes, otherwise they are almost the same the main advantage of course being centre to centre so the journey time overall would be shorter by train.
The issue with including a full dining car for first class is that it's space than Amtrak can't afford to either use or lose depending on how you look at it. Adding another car would mean more weight, and thus more electricity to power each train, and if they convert another car to a dining car, then that's seats they could sell, which means a loss of money. The only way for this to work is either to find a way to decrease profit margins to include them, or to pass the costs onto the passengers, which no one wants.
Some years ago back when I was living in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina pretty much destroyed New Orleanss We lost or ass a then some I took the Antral Cresent City Limited up to Washington D C In D C I change to a Northest Direct I did not know about the quite car This lady got on the train in New York She talked on her cell pnhone all of the way to Boston I was hoping that my bike was in Boston But it was not in yet My bike had to go the City of New Orleans to Chicago Then leave Chicago on the North Shore Limited but it was always late
I think it depends on which service you book and how far in advance you book it. While I was doing research for this video, I found that prices usually hovered around the $100 mark for Acela business class, with the lowest Northeast Regional prices sitting at or above $41. Even now when I look at booking from NYC to Boston, I can't find a ticket for less than $41 without looking at departure dates over a month from now.
@@LonestarTrips When you say "as low as" at 11:18, you need to mean what you say. The base coach NYP/BOS fare is now $31, with a 3-week advance purchase (Sept. 21). That's up $3 from $28, which was the base fare about 2 months ago. NEC fares are not solely based on purchase times, though, there are "buckets" that fill up, so you can run out of cheap fares on any given train even for trips that are 3-or-more weeks out. And of course there are sales several times a year.
I recently made Trips to NYC and Boston. I loved the metro lounge in Penn it was my birthday and I treated myself. on my Boston trip I elected to be dropped in back bay due to proximity to my hotel. Back bay station is pretty poor but IT’s nicely located in Copley square. I prefer south station but wish they reopened the food court. The restaurants in south station are very good. It’s one of those cases where the lounge is inferior.
OK, it looks nice, but trains in Europe have been going a lot faster for a long time. Averaging a little over 60mph (100 kph) in a train that can do 150 is not rocket science. The train however does share tracks with a lot of much slower trains and this is part of the problem the main problem is the overage structures and the amount of curvature in this over 150 year old line, the actual train speeds aren't much better than the express service in the old steam loco era.
If people really want to go green and reduce emissions then trains need to be slightly faster and infrastructure should be done to support such speeds. Also tickets needs to be made more affordable. There should not be a reason to have the older slower trains between DC- NYC - Boston. It is unfortunate there is no investment in more trains. Airplanes and airports are way too crowded and there needs to be a better alternative. Look at brightline.
Amtrak should focus on city pairs that's where they would be more profitable and cut long distance routes that are inconsistent unreliable and unprofitable!!!
Excellent job great information I love train 🚆 travel. Now going to NYC from boston there's a 3.30 am train is this an accla train, and on this train what's the business class like. Great vid very interesting.
Sounds like there's some confusion, the middle-of-the-night train is Amtrak 66, which runs from Roanoke, VA, through Washington, DC, New York, and ends in Boston. 66 departs New York at 2:40am (not 3:30am). It is not an Acela high-speed train, it is a Northeast Regional train and it makes all the stops. It does have a business-class car with reserved seats, though. Note that it's scheduled to arrive at NYP at 1:55am before its 2:40am departure, so it hangs out in New York for quite a while. It's counterpart in the other direction, Train 67, leaves Boston at 9:30pm and then departs NYP at 3:20am and Newark, NJ at 3:40am, and terminates at Newport News, VA. Those are close to 3:30am but not quite.
@@johnhawkinson Nope, the “middle of the night train” leaves Boston at 9:30pm, and arrives NYP in the middle of the night a around 3am. I think there was briefly an Acela that departed BOS at 4am, but it didn’t perform well, especially with COVID killing 9am meetings forever, so the earliest BOS departure is now 5am. Once they get more equipment, a 4am Acela departure could return
Very nice! I think you should have splurged and got one of the de luxe lunch plates instead. They looked yummy! 😋 And the lamb entrée on board the train! It sounded so good 😋
I honestly like Amtrak however with the price of a ticket being similar to air travel, it makes it a no brainer between the 2. Rail travel is such a lost experience
i wish Amtrak had copied the European model. Taking a European train is extremely pleasant for 2nd class passengers too. Public transport in the US will never take off if Amtrak only caters to the .1%. In Europe, nobody eats on the train. The food looked like typical American processed food prepared by people that live in their car 😉 Why bother. They should have had a bar wagon as they have in Europe. Way more fun. Not enough people take the train to make it profitable in the US though.
2nd class (at least in Germany) is not pleasant - at all. The seat pitch isn’t great, the seat itself gets uncomfortable quickly, the lighting is distracting on late evenings and early mornings. The passengers make the experience worse by littering the train or being noisy. 1st class is completely useless on regional or commuter trains. The only benefit is that you’re guaranteed to get a seat because that section is empty most of the time. People definitely eat onboard of trains in Europe. They either get their food from the cafe car (like on Amtrak), order it airplane style or bring their own food (Amtrak allows that too). Food is almost always processed, unless you harvest your own fruits and vegetables and eat them straight away (say goodbye to “European” bread, cheese, and cutouts). The Northeast Corridor is profitable.
I also was wondering about 2nd class. Or if this train is entirely 1st class type with all the perks.I like virtually riding on the European trains but they do not mention anything about different classes. Of course the view on the videos is from the front of the train and you never see inside the train. I love riding on trains. I took Amtrak from Rochester NY to California many years ago and loved it!
From what I understand, passengers are allowed one meal per half of the corridor. So you would get one meal between DC and NYC, and then another between NYC and Boston.
For arrivals, you can choose which hall you want to arrive in, regardless of NJ Transit or Amtrak (or LIRR even). Walk west for Moynihan Train Hall, walk east for classic Penn Station. With the exception of tracks 1-4, all the platforms have access to the "West End Concourse" that leads to Moynihan. Although only tracks 7-17 have escalators that come out directly into Moynihan.
"quick look at the gorgeous train that brought us here" -- paint peeling off.. bolts and panels loose with gaps .. some damage to the nose of it .. first class sign having rust ... yea.. its gorgeous alright lol
Damn Moynihan looks so nice. Acela rules, love seeing Amtrak hubs getting the love and investment they deserve. Although I will say, why does Amtrak always make everyone line up for boarding like it's the airport? Seems like letting riders down onto the platforms would make more sense...or providing bench seats in the concourse like Chicago Union Station has.
There are plenty of other ways to access the tracks, not just the 1 escalator that 90% of people use. There’s a lower level at Moynihan that’s halfway to track level, and access from both levels at the Amtrak section of the old Penn Station provide access to all tracks. Most tracks can also be accessed via the NJT concourse by 7th Ave
@@lukethompson5558 thanks for this information! I've never been through Penn Station myself so I was just going off the slice of information I've seen in some videos. Noticed the lineup in other videos as well, guess that's just a people habit at train stations, lol. Still would like to see SOME benches go down in the new train hall, the central part seems a little vacuous without some wooden benches or at least those airport style polymer material seats that are probably easier to keep clean. Oh well maybe someday.
This is the best we have to offer in the USA!!! Embarrassing 😬 Europe, China, and Japan have had trains for years that go over twice as fast as this train. It makes you wonder why we have fallen so far behind other countries in terms of train travel. Why haven't other train companies come to the USA to compete with Amtrak?? Who is the owner of Amtrak and the train tracks in the USA?? Things that make you go Hmm 🤔
Bullet trains and maglev super trains technology. To the mighty United States of America, what in the hell are you waiting for? Maglev bullet train technology, the new american dream....
Amtrak Acela from New York city to Boston takes 3 hours and 40 minutes? Lol!!!! At a cost of 65 billion dollars, we coul d obtain the Japanese maglev super train to be built in the northeast corridor from Washington DC to Boston. Japan even offered to contribute 5 billion dollars for the project. Now this maglev super train travels at speeds of up to 374 mph. This means i can board in Washington DC and be in my office in new york city in an hour or less. Try that in your beloved cars. 150 mph isn't fast enough to even come close to making the list of top 10 fastest trains on earth. You canvkeep the Acela. I'll wait for the real trains to hit...
Please tell your friend at Congress to set aside money for Amtrak to do that...Amtrak asked for money back in 2009...ur friends in Congress told Amtrak to pound sand...not Amtrak's fault that Congress is in the pocket of Freight rails companies, airlines, oil industry, and the car industry.
Hey! Please add METRIC as well! km, in addition to mi, etc. If you are the host of this video WHY hide your face (even whilst already wearing a mask!? Used to be hosts would LOVE to be seen! Americans are so hung up on privacy that the public social aspect has been going out of style! That's a real shame!
Are you sure the Avelia will go faster? My understanding is that since Congress wouldn't give money to upgrade the tracks, the Avelia was purchased to be able transport more people in one train...not go faster since the FRA will not allow it.
Great helpful review. But I had to mute. Man this is the guy who will talk the whole ride or thru the whole hockey game. Every little detail must be verbalized. Oh well to each his own.
I like the constant commentary. He has a lot of good info! Also I like to sew while I'm watching, glancing up and down, and he cues me to look up at something especially interesting.
WOW! We have nothing like that in China cos we're a backwater joint according to y'all! I guessed that we will just have to work extra hard so we can be more like y'all. The Greatest country in the WORLD and of course the Greatest people in the WORLD by DEFAULT.
Oooo, 150 mph occasionally! Someday we’ll grow up to be a developing country with average speeds of at least 120 mph greater and top speeds 2 X faster. And this is our fastest route at 62 mph average? Well, made video however. The presentation was interesting with beautiful stations and countryside, although for me the emphasis on so so small portions of processed foods made it feel like Amtrak’s way of making a lot off of 1st class customers with little else to offer and a small investment once the lounge is built. The food/grazing was constant! With all that overhead space you could bring a few meals. I remember riding a demonstrator train between DC and Baltimore, ICE tilt trains I believe, in the 1990s. It felt like we had just boarded when we arrived. It’s good to know there’s a tilt set that seems to work, without the nausea, 17 years or so later.
just the fastest in the NYP~BOS section as a whole... the fastest Acela run-times between station stops is probably Baltimore and Wilmington (68.9 miles), at 40 minutes. Or 103.3 MPH. Even the slower NE Regional nonstop runs are 50 minutes or better, i.e. 82 MPH+ Then it's Route 128 to Providence
