Life on Acela train not a pretty sight

26 January 2001

It's Tuesday morning and the train from Boston, scheduled to arrive in New York in two minutes, sits 50 minutes away in Stamford, Conn.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Acela.

Acela is Amtrak's $2 billion effort to revamp its service along the Boston-to-Washington corridor. After years of delay, it's finally under way. The results aren't pretty.

Last year, having finally electrified its rail lines between Boston and New Haven, Conn., Amtrak launched its so-called Regional Acela service. Travelers think of it as "Acela Lite." They were the same old trains as before, but, because they didn't have to stop in New Haven for the long changeover from diesel to electric engines, the trip was cut from nearly five hours to - precisely - three hours and 55 minutes.

It was still a long ride, particularly when compared to air trip from Logan to LaGuardia scheduled at one hour and 13 minutes. But at $51.30 (with an AAA discount) it easily beat Delta or US Airway's shuttle service, which costs $125 when purchased through a travel agent. If you weren't on an expense account, or if you were but actually cared how much your trips were costing your employer, it was a good alternative. Plus, if you were the kind of person who liked to ruminate, it was a good time to ruminate.

And then, in December, came Acela. This, we were told, was the real thing - the high-calorie, go-for-the-gusto, bridge-to-the-new- millennium future of the train.

Well, I have ridden the future, and here's what it is: glitzy, slow and expensive.

Let's start with the glitz. Sleek and bullet-shaped, the Acela trainsets come straight out of the world of Star Trek. The colors are stylish. The windows are big and the ride is smooth. Doors open automatically as you approach them. The cafe car serves sophisticated sandwiches and beer on tap. And the seats have (be still, my beating heart) footrests!

There are the occasional odd moments. The draft beer is served in plastic cups, making the cafe car more reminiscent of a college bar in Brighton than a swank downtown restaurant. The sandwiches are microwaved, a la 7-Eleven, meaning that the trendy whole wheat bread still ends up having the texture of a sponge. And the restrooms have large windows - uncurtained - that make using them as one nears a station a highly problematic (as well as a possibly highly public) event.

And the price of glitz? $120. That's more than double the Acela Lite and only $5 less than making the same trip by air.

Amtrak likes to brag about the high speeds the new Acela trains can achieve. True enough. Just south of Providence a conductor's voice proudly brays through the train, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are now traveling at 150 miles an hour!"

Ten minutes later, the train slows.

It turns out that most of the track is too curvy to allow Acela to hit its top speed. The rest of the trip, particularly on the New Haven to New York leg, one sits fuming as automobiles and even decades-old commuter trains easily pass by.

That's why the Boston to New York run clocks in at three hours and 28 minutes, an average speed of 67 mph. That's just 27 minutes shorter than the much less expensive Acela Lite. And, of course, it is much longer than the shuttle from Logan to LaGuardia.

Moreover, Amtrak is notorious for its delays. Acela Lite trains seem to make more unscheduled stops than scheduled stops. Long waits are routine. And while Acela itself, in its short, one-month life, has had a better than 90 percent on-time record, no Amtrak veteran believes those numbers will hold. Acela at present makes just one round-trip a day, under intense public scrutiny. When it expands to what Amtrak expects will be 10 times a day, the delays will inevitably creep in.

Delays happen, by the way, because Amtrak shares its tracks with lots of other trains. Any slight delay anywhere, and Acela loses its place in line. The whole trip slows to a crawl.

It was supposed to have been so good. What went wrong?

The truth, I think, is that Amtrak was beguiled by the notion of Acela the same way that investors over the last few years became enraptured by dot-com companies. The whole thing was just so damn cool that the bottom line - profits in the case of Internet companies, cost and speed in the case of transportation - didn't matter.

Amtrak has given us a product that, in terms of amenities and pricing, is clearly pitched at the business traveler. But it's the rare business traveler who will stomach a seven-hour round-trip when the same can be done by air in 2 1/2.

Of course, non-business travelers are often willing to spend more time traveling in exchange for lower fares. But Acela's airline- style pricing puts the train out of reach of those travelers as well.

Sure, the Acela trains are neat. But the whole point of transportation is to get from point A to point B quickly and cheaply. Acela, which once promised it would do both, in fact does neither.