by Paul Eliefrom Georgetown University
Amtrak’s Secret: It Works
Amtrak regional train 188 is “my train.” I am one of the many thousands of people who take Amtrak regularly from New York to Washington and back, and I have taken the 7:10 regional train out of Washington dozens of times. On Thursday – after three eventful days at Georgetown – I returned to New York by Greyhound instead, and the experience underscored what most of us Amtrak regulars know, even if we rarely acknowledge it: that Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor system generally works very well, and that we couldn’t imagine our working lives without it.
Facing competition from Megabus, Boltbus and other low-cost carriers, Greyhound now runs new, clean buses, with more legroom, leatherish seats, and functioning wi-fi. From Washington, buses depart from Union Station, up an escalator from Amtrak’s platforms, and on a pleasant day like yesterday, waiting there, under a roof but in the open air, is more civilized than waiting for Amtrak downstairs.
And yet Greyhound is still Greyhound. Buses for New York were scheduled to depart at 8:30 and 10 a.m. As the 8:30 bus was delayed, passengers for the two buses formed a single bloblike queue. The staff seemed to know little more than the passengers, who quarreled with the staff and one another. The 8:30 bus finally pulled in more than an hour late, at 9:40 – ten minutes after the 10 o'clock bus pulled in. So passengers with tickets for the later bus (I was one) boarded and departed earlier. But the bus wasn’t on time for long. Due in New York at 3:30 – after a five-hour journey with stops in Baltimore; Mt. Laurel, N.J.; and Newark – the bus lingered in Baltimore and wound up arriving at 4:30, more than an hour late, and eight hours after I’d arrived at Union Station in the first place. And although the bus was new and clean, the ride is still an essentially captive experience, with no stop for a snack or a stretch of the legs.
By contrast, trains on Amtrak’s regional service – such as wrecked train 188 – make the trip in about three and a half hours. In my experience, trains that run in the daytime are on time 14 times out of 15; only the late-night trains seem regularly to run into long delays. The regional trains are swift and reliable enough that those of us who sometimes take the high-speed Acela (2 hours 50 minutes from New York to Washington) routinely calculate whether it’s worth paying the much higher fare for the high-speed train when the regional train will take only 35 or 40 minutes more to get there. And in some ways the regional train is preferable to the Acela, with better colors and lighting, full tables in the cafe car, and a little more room in the aisle for those of us who like to amble during the ride.
When Amtrak is safe, it works, and its speed and comfort are a privilege. It’s not cheap; and its relative efficiency likely comes at the cost of safety, too. It’s likely that those regional trains run on time – or ahead of time, to the delight of passengers – because engineers exceed the speed limit. According to a notice that popped up when I Googled “Amtrak train 188” a few minutes after Tuesday’s crash, train 188 was delayed 15 to 18 minutes out of Washington that evening due to a mechanical problem. Maybe the “mechanical problem” was on the tracks north of Philadelphia. Or maybe the engineer was speeding to make up the lost time.
I hope some other writer is looking into it. Meanwhile, I expect to ride “my train” 188 dozens of times in the years to come.
