WASHINGTON — According to a wire service, Amtrak celebrated the one-year anniversary of the nation’s first high-speed train Monday amid uncertainty about its own future as America’s passenger rail company.
With creature comforts and a top speed of 150 mph, Acela Express has received positive reviews from passengers and travel writers. But due to a series of delays, it may be hitting its stride too late to help Amtrak.
Amtrak was relying on profits from the Washington-New York-Boston service to help it operate without government subsidies by Dec. 2, 2002, as ordered by Congress.
The federal Amtrak Reform Council has declared Amtrak will not meet the deadline, however, and early next year the council will give Congress a plan for a restructured national rail program that may or may not include Amtrak.
Interest is growing around the country for more trains like Acela Express, but some rail advocates and lawmakers believe Amtrak should not lead the effort.
Amtrak focused on the positive during Monday’s celebration at South Station in Boston. Amtrak’s acting chairman, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, cut a birthday cake for Acela Express and said high-speed trains should be offered around the country.
“I cannot overemphasize the importance of this success,” Dukakis said, “because what it really says is if you give people first-class, modern high-speed service, they will come by the thousands.”
Acela Express entered service Dec. 11, 2000, after a year of production delays. Service continues to be phased in. Amtrak has received 16 trains from the builders, Canada’s Bombardier Transportation and France’s Alstom Ltd., and is awaiting four more.
Amtrak says ridership numbers are encouraging, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks. Passengers have included professional sports teams, 40 senators traveling to New York to view the World Trade Center wreckage, and an original print of the Declaration of Independence, which rolled to Philadelphia for the start of a national tour.
“Acela is everything an American passenger train has never been: clean, quiet, stable and fast,” said Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., a frequent rider. “It is as good as the great trains of Europe.”
Under current track conditions, however, the train reaches 150 mph only for 18 miles in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Its top speed between Washington and New York is 135 mph. In some places, it crawls at 15 mph.
“Riding Acela (Express) is like being in a Porsche stuck in rush-hour traffic,” said Gilbert Norman, a Chicago-area accountant, after riding the train from Connecticut to Boston.
Upgrading tracks between Washington and New York would cost $12 billion. Many in Congress are reluctant to give Amtrak any money, and even some lawmakers who support Amtrak want it to devote more resources outside the Northeast.
And demands for money are wide-ranging. The deaths this weekend of three teen-agers in suburban Philadelphia, struck by an Acela Express train traveling at 100 mph, highlighted the importance of fences and security patrols along train routes in heavily populated areas.
Amtrak predicted Acela Express would attract nearly 3.9 million riders in its first year of full operation while generating $180 million in profit. Government watchdogs said those expectations are too rosy. It won’t be clear who is right until all the trains are in service.
Acela Express had carried 857,000 riders as of Nov. 30.
A bill in Congress would help Amtrak raise $12 billion to begin work on 10 other high-speed train routes and improve the Northeast Corridor. In most places outside the Northeast, trains have a top speed of 79 mph.
House Transportation Committee chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, has proposed alternative legislation that would provide $71 billion to state rail projects, bypassing Amtrak.
Regardless of how the money is distributed, states are ready.
Representatives of North Carolina and Virginia held their first meeting last month to plan a 110-mph train route between Washington and Charlotte.
Nine Midwestern states are working on a high-speed rail network that would allow trains to reach 110 mph over more than 3,000 miles of track.
And the California High-Speed Rail Authority is winnowing potential routes for a 700-mile system linking California’s major cities with trains at speeds exceeding 200 mph.