(The Associated Press distributed the following article on October 5.)
WILMINGTON, Del. — With its fastest and most expensive trains in the Northeast late nearly 30 percent of the time, Amtrak will make significant changes to its Acela Express service later this month in an effort to boost reliability and attract more high-paying business travelers.
Several stops between Boston and Washington will be curtailed or eliminated, weekend service will be halved to make more time for train maintenance and schedules will be revised to more accurately reflect actual trip times.
The overhaul is intended to give Acela “a little more room to breathe” as Amtrak strives to improve its disappointing on-time performance, said Walt Peters, the passenger rail’s chief scheduler.
Acela’s sleek high-speed trains were introduced to the region roughly four years ago with high expectations that, in hindsight, were “a little too optimistic,” Peters said in an interview at Amtrak’s national operations center in Wilmington.
“I think we have released the pressure valve with these changes,” he added.
The changes take effect Oct. 27 and will appear in new schedules to be made public Thursday.
Amtrak’s goal is to get Acela’s on-time performance above 90 percent — an achievement Peters and other managers believe will result in greater customer satisfaction and a $1.3 million-a-year increase in revenue.
The overhaul comes as Amtrak wrangles with the federal government over a proposed $1 billion in subsidies for 2004 and as unionized Amtrak workers threaten to walk off the job due to underfunding of the railroad. A planned walkout by Amtrak employees last week was delayed until Oct. 20, the date set for a hearing on the railroad’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
While changes to the schedule will affect regular Amtrak service as far north as Vermont and as far south as North Carolina, the biggest adjustments by far were made to the Acela service in the busy Northeast corridor, where 35,000 passengers travel daily and equipment problems are rampant.
Still, Amtrak ridership is up roughly 10 percent nationwide since the Sept. 11 attacks, a spokesman said. Some travelers have shied away from airlines because of the extra wait times and uncertainty stemming from airport security screening.
Now, in an effort to attract more business travelers to its premium Acela service, one roundtrip between New York and Washington will be added on weekdays, bringing the total to 13.
However, Amtrak will eliminate 10 Acela trips between New York and Washington on weekends. This will give crews more time for maintenance and hopefully reduce the number of mechanical problems during the week, Amtrak said. The canceled trains will be replaced with Metroliner service, which is slower and less expensive.
To speed up trip times a few minutes in each direction during the week, the New Carrollton, Md., stop will be eliminated on all Acela trains and on most Metroliner trains. Acela trains will also bypass Metropark, N.J., and Baltimore-Washington International Airport on an alternating basis.
“That doesn’t mean we’ve walked away from BWI and Metropark,” Peters said, adding that — with Metroliner and Regional service included — Amtrak serves those locations “at least once an hour.”
Peters said tweaking the Washington-New York schedule is vital to improving the punctuality of Boston-bound trains, as well. Northbound Acela trains that arrive a few minutes late in New York can be made to wait much longer than that as dispatchers give the right of way to commuter trains serving New Jersey and New York.
To prevent this from happening on southbound trains, Amtrak will eliminate the New Haven, Conn., stop in 4 out of 11 daily roundtrips Acela makes between Boston and New York.
Even after reducing the number of Acela stops, the new Amtrak schedule will list New York-Washington trips as 6 minutes longer, at 2 hours and 47 minutes. Washington-New York trips will appear on the timetable as 3 minutes longer, at 2 hours and 48 minutes.
Listed trip times between New York and Boston won’t change.