New York to New Haven –  US Rail Journeys Series 3 Episode 39

In ‘New York to New Haven’ I travel from New York’s Moynihan Train Hall on the high speed Acela service.

Please click on a thumbnail to see the photographs that go with this podcast:

Acela:

Acela is Amtrak‘s flagship passenger service on the Northeast Corridor running between Washington, D.C. and Boston. They are the fastest in the Americas, reaching 150 miles per hour. Sadly the trains only reach 150 mph for 49.9 miles of the 457-mile route.

Acela is busy with over 2.9 million passengers in 2023. It is only beaten by the slower and less expensive Northeast Regional service with over 9 million passengers. It accounts for around 25% of Amtrak’s total revenue.

The fastest speed is on tracks between Mansfield, Massachusetts, and Richmond, Rhode Island, and South Brunswick and Trenton, New Jersey.

Acela uses active tilting technology, allowing the train to travel at higher speeds on the sharply curved North East Corridor.

Most of the high-speed operation is on the 226-mile route from in New York to Union Station in Washington with a fastest scheduled time of 2 hours and 45 minutes and an average speed of 82 miles per hour including stops.

Penn Station – Moynihan Train Hall:

I leave from Penn Station for the last time in this series of journeys on the 2.10 pm Acela service to Boston South Station.

It is the main intercity station in New York and claimed to be the busiest transport facility in the Western Hemisphere, with, in 2019, more than 600,000 passengers each weekday.

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