Amtrak’s NextGen Acela high-speed trains are now racing passengers between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., hitting top speeds of 160 miles per hour.
Leo Friedman and his mother, Phyllis, traveled from New Jersey to D.C. this week just to take the inaugural train north.
“Ever since that first video came out, that Amtrak posted about nine years ago, I’ve been super interested and invested in this NextGen Acela,” Friedman told CBS News.
Acela was a game-changer when it first launched 25 years ago, doubling Amtrak’s market share in the Northeast.
The 28 new trains will hold about 80 more passengers. They offer upgraded seats, bigger windows, faster Wi-Fi and lots of charging power. All 28 trains, assembled in upstate New York, are expected to be in service by 2027.
There’s also a self-serve food bar in the café car.
“This train truly is the future of the high-speed rail in America,” Elliot Hamlisch, Amtrak chief commercial officer, told CBS News. “…This is the most technologically-advanced train, not only in America, but in the world. So we’ve taken the best of what Europe has to offer and incorporated it here on our tracks.”
The new trains have a top speed 10 miles per hour faster than the older Acelas, but still slower than high-speed trains in Europe and Asia. This is in part because of tracks laid over a century ago that wind through communities.
But the new trains are designed to lean into curves, allowing them to go faster.
“This is the next best step to moving us faster in the Eastern Corridor,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CBS News.
The new Acela trains also meet new, stronger crashworthiness standards, guarding against the kind of jackknife-type derailment that killed eight people and injured more than 200 in Northeast Philadelphia in 2015.
They also come online as the Department of Transportation is pledging $43 million to jumpstart upgrades at New York’s Penn Station. Duffy also announced this week DOT is taking direct oversight of Washington’s Union Station.
Emmy Award-winning journalist Kris Van Cleave is the senior transportation correspondent for CBS News based in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also serves as a national correspondent reporting for all CBS News broadcasts and platforms.
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