Amtrak Rolls Out New High-Speed Trains Running Slower Than the Old Ones
It will take longer to travel from Washington to Boston in the new trains than in the old ones.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Amtrak’s brand new, state-of-the-art high-speed trains officially launched, but there’s a catch—they don’t actually run any faster than the old ones yet. Two of the five next-generation Acela trains deployed on the Washington-Boston corridor will actually run slower than the older models for the foreseeable future. According to The Wall Street Journal, the new trains will take at least seven hours and five minutes to complete the trip, which is around 10 minutes slower than the current journey time. Amtrak has blamed the corridor’s aging tracks, power systems, and signals for preventing the new models from safely reaching their top speed of 160 mph, highlighting a disparity between American railways and the modern, high-speed tracks found in Europe and Asia. The company has since stated that schedules will be adjusted based on real-world performance and that future infrastructure upgrades are planned to help the new trains reach their full potential. Amtrak plans to add 28 new trains to its fleet over the next two years as part of a $2.45 billion investment project.
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