BOSTON — The problem, like so many others in life, may have less to do with performance than expectation, and, admittedly, when I boarded the Acela Express from Boston to New York this week I expected a lot, according to Brian McGrory a columnist for the Boston Globe.
I’d heard all the hype about its blazing speed. I’d seen photographs of the futuristic trains with rocket-shaped noses and silvery sleek veneers. I’d read about the growing numbers of riders who now eschew the nation’s air transit system for the relative safety of the railroad.
So forgive me for having visions of a bullet train hurtling down the Eastern Seaboard, miraculously banking through one smooth set of curves after another in an engineering marvel the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Orville and Wilbur Wright took flight.
Oh, it would be glorious, this trip. I’d settle into a plush seat, chat with old friends on my cellphone, and, in no time, it would be over. Are we in Penn Station already? I haven’t even finished my Coke.
Alas, it is not to be.
First, some good points about the Acela. The cars, as Hemingway might describe them, are clean, well-lighted places, attractive to the point of being nearly chic. The seats are covered with soft blue cloth with pillowy headrests and give enough room to allow you to stretch your legs – a mere wish on the shuttle unless you’re lucky enough to score an exit row.
The whole experience, in a word, is civil. There are no metal detectors, no seat belts, no ornery attendants telling you to get back in your seat. Show up at the station as the train is scheduled to depart, use the spacious on-board bathrooms any time you want, and order off the menu in the Club Car.
But civility comes at a price, and a bullet train this is not. As a matter of fact, the Acela hits its top speed of 150 miles per hour for just 18 miles in Rhode Island, or, by my calculation, for about seven minutes in its journey. The rest of the time it moves along at what seems normal train speed until it hits New Haven, and then it barely seems to move at all. Through a huge swath of Connecticut, automobiles on the parallel highway were passing us – handily. Kids on bikes were keeping up. At one point, I think I saw an old man with a walking stick and a flock of sheep walk past us. Either that or I was just bored out of my brain.
And the only time anyone’s cellphone worked for more than a few minutes at a stretch was during the return trip, when the so-called bullet train was stopped dead in its tracks in Connecticut for half an hour because of faulty wiring.
Each trip, down and back, took roughly four hours, for a fare of $118 each way.
I know, I know. The rail purists – and they’re growing in numbers since Sept. 11 – talk of the time saved by avoiding airport traffic and long lines at security. They talk of the cash saved in cab fares. Please. It takes 15 minutes to get to Logan, 40 minutes at most from LaGuardia to midtown, and the flight is just an hour long.
So I called Mike Dukakis, the vice chairman of Amtrak and the godfather of the high-speed rail. If you ever find yourself with a few extra hours and an aching curiosity about double-tracking and right-of-ways, give him a call.
He talked about the growing numbers of riders, the fact that more people take the train than the shuttle in the New York-Washington market, and that in the Boston-New York corridor Amtrak’s market share has doubled in the last couple of years. He talked about all that and more before he conceded, ”We have this terrific 150- miles-per-hour train that has to putz along at 40 or 50 miles per hour for too much of the trip.”
The problem, he said, is that the track from New Haven to New York is outdated and clogged by commuter trains. With gradual modernizations, he vowed, ”Over the next three or four years, we’ll get you down there in three hours or less.”
I believe him, but until then I’ll be on the shuttle.