Home > Rafi on the Rails > Archives > 2007 > September > 26
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Day 1: The Downeaster—If you ever visit Maine, RIDE THIS TRAIN
To go from First Class on the Acela Express straight to the Downeaster is like leaving a meeting with Donald Trump to go have lunch with your grandmother. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, understand—just the opposite. The Downeaster has a reputation among train buffs for being this rare bird in the Amtrak system. To start with, it’s the only train in the entire Amtrak system to be completely disconnected from the rest of the Amtrak National Network; while the Downeaster arrives into and departs from Boston’s North Station, all of Amtrak’s other Boston services (Regionals, Acelas, and the Lake Shore Limited) hail from South Station, a little over a mile away as the crow flies, and there has never been a solid, straight rail link between the two stations (long, LONG story). Whether or not that physical disconnect somehow subconsiously plays into the atmosphere on the Downeaster is something one can only suppose, but make no mistake; when you step foot on the Downeaster, be ready for ANYTHING.
Let’s take my trip today from Boston to Portland, Maine. I boarded the train at 4:50 PM (the train left at 5:00 PM). As soon as I set foot into the car, I noticed that everyone was engaged as a group. Reread that last sentence; I’ll wait. That’s right, a GROUP. This was clearly a car of people who travel this train A LOT. I took my seat, and as the conductor came through to collect tickets, he remarked that Guilford (also coming to be known as Pan Am since they recently acquired the Pan Am logo and name), the railroad on which Amtrak runs the Downeaster, was imposing heat restrictions today. Yes, heat restrictions. The simple explanation of a heat restriction is this: when the weather gets hot, the metal rails the train runs on expand. If they expand too much, they can break loose of their ties and become warped. The thing is, it has to be REALLY hot for a long period of time for this to happen, and each railroad operates under different heat restriction criteria. Until today, I thought CSX was pretty much the worst when it came to imposing heat restrictions on passenger trains (they’re notorious in the DC area on commuter lines). Now I have to say that Guilford has pretty much taken the cake for calling heat restrictions at the end of September in Maine, when it’s 86 degrees in Portland. I realize Maine folks may find that temperature a little warm, but to those of us a little farther south, that’s pretty comfortable. In any case, the heat restrictions mean that we’ll probably be an hour delayed in getting to Portland.
Imagine how this sort of news would fall on the First Class car on an Acela; Amtrak would probably have to brace for some very colorful phone calls. Now, take a look at the photo at the top of this blog item of our Conductor, whose nickname is Zeb (yes, everyone here calls him Zeb, even though his real name is Tom). That’s pretty much how the Downeaster crew and passengers react. They laugh, relax and get through it. I probably don’t need to tell you that I’d rather be delayed an hour on a Downeaster train with Zeb than delayed 15 minutes on an Acela in First Class.
There’s more to the Downeaster’s interesting story, but I’m going to save that for tomorrow.
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Day 1: Overheard on the Scanner
ENGINEER (on a different train, to dispatch, after finding that a component on his engine was malfunctioning): “Maybe they’ll start fixin’ them instead of just paintin’ ‘em!”
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Day 1: Acela Express Baltimore to Boston
The Acela Express. When most people from the northeast think of Amtrak, the Acela is what usually leaps to mind. Built by Bombardier, the Acela Express is Amtrak’s version of European trains like France’s TGV and runs between Washington, DC and Boston, Massachusetts.
I’ve ridden the Acela a number of times, since I live in Baltimore and often go to New York or Connecticut for business and family trips. You pay a premium to ride on the Acela, and while it’s not that much faster than your standard Amtrak Regional train (about 25 mins faster between Washington and New York, and about an hour faster between Washington and Boston), I’ve always felt that you’re paying for the atmosphere and the comfort of the ride: the clientele on the Acela is generally such that your chances of having Cheetos thrown at your head by a screaming, drooling tot are pretty low, and when it comes to ride smoothness, nothing else really comes close (the Acela actually banks to the side on turns and has a better suspension system than the regionals). The ride is so smooth, in fact, that there were a number of times that I could have sworn we were just crawling along at a snail’s pace, but when I glanced at my GPS unit, we were going 65 miles per hour. So, as a rule of thumb, if you think you’re going 10 miles per hour, you’re probably doing 40. If you think you’re moving along at 40, you’re probably going 70. And if it feels like 70, odds are you’re doing 150. It’s that drastic. The Acela also generally gets priority over other trains; case in point: there was track work in Stamford, Connecticut today and the Vermonter (which runs from Washington to St. Albans, VT) was directly in front of us. One of the two trains would have to stop and wait for the other to leave Stamford before the other could continue in. Even though the Vermonter was ahead of us, because we’re an Acela, we pulled around and passed the Vermonter just prior to Stamford and arrived and departed from the station first.
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I should probably also mention that I’m riding First Class today from Baltimore to Boston. I’m an Amtrak Guest Rewards Select Plus member, and one of the perks with that status are a few free upgrade coupons that I can use throughout the course of the year. First Class on the Acela, for a run from Baltimore to Boston, will generally run you around $100 on top of your base railfare (which can be anywhere from $137 to $222), so it’s not cheap. But, like First Class on an airline, you get pampered. Hot meals that are generally better than anything you’ll see on a plane. Free wine. Bigger seats that recline farther. Real china. Real glass glasses. A generally quieter crowd. You get the idea. For me, the real perks are the meals. Breakfast this morning (pictured below) was quite good. I had my choice between scrambled eggs, a fresh Belgian Waffle, or a Continental (fruit and cereal).
I had the eggs and a side of sausage links off the recommendation of a lady sitting behind me, and while the eggs reminded me a little of college (it’s that powder-egg thing I’ll always remember), they were quite good (although the sausage was better
The Acela isn’t without its problems, however. While it’s a fast train, it’s not as fast as it could be, primarily because of track infrastructure limitations. For example, there are only a few short stretches from Washington to Boston where the train actually goes 150 miles per hour. For much of the trip, you’re averaging between 60 and 80 miles per hour. The main reason for the speed limitations has to do with sharp curves in the track and congestion with other traffic on the line. France, by comparison, built a dedicated railroad for much of their TGV line, which afford much higher speeds and has a high number of straight stretches where the train can get up to speed and maintain that speed for a considerable amount of time. Some rail buffs have likened the Acela’s predicament to racing a Lamborghini on a dirt road with short stretches of highway.
So that’s it for now. We’ve just left New Haven, Connecticut and should be in Boston in just a few short hours. Stay tuned: video and more pictures to come later this evening!
In the meantime, feel free to send me an email with any questions or requests: rafi@coxnews.com.
-Rafi
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