Amtrak's sleek new high-speed electric trains are coming next spring

[marmar]

Amtrak’s sleek new high-speed electric trains are coming next spring
Taking the train from D.C. to Boston is about to get nicer—and a little faster.


(Fast Company) Earlier this year, if you happened to be standing at a train station in New Jersey at a certain time of night, you might have seen a sleek new high-speed Acela zip by. The trains, which did 900 test runs between January and August, are expected to start commercial service on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor line next spring.

They’re designed to be a better ride than the existing two-decade-old Acela trains, which carried nearly three million passengers last year. The new trains are quieter and designed to minimize vibration, so the ride feels smoother. They weigh less and are more aerodynamic; though the old trains are also electric, the new version uses less electricity to run. The first trains went into service in 2000, when cellphones were relatively rare; the new trains will have USB outlets (and regular outlets) at each seat. Winged headrests at each seat will offer a little privacy and prevent your neighbor from falling asleep on your shoulder. The trains will have an extra car, to carry around 25% more passengers, and will run more often. They’ll also be faster, at up to 160 miles an hour. The current trains are limited to 150 miles an hour.

The caveat: 160 miles an hour is still much slower than high-speed rail in other countries. In China, the Shanghai Maglev can travel at up to 285 miles per hour. Deutsche Bahn runs trains in Germany at up to 217 miles per hour. France’s TGV can run at nearly 200 miles an hour, with faster trains coming out next year. India is planning a new high-speed rail line that will also travel around 200 miles an hour, with help from Japan, where bullet trains go as fast.

Amtrak is limited by aging train tracks and curves along the route. “In most places in the world, when you’re doing high-speed rail, you’re designing the tracks and building the system at the same time that you’re building the trains,” says Dani Simons, VP of communications for Alstom, the French company that designed the new Acela trains and is building them in upstate New York. “Those tracks are generally designed to be very straight, very few curves. You’re not sharing tracks with other types of trains. Here in the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak had a really interesting and bold vision to bring high-speed trains to [an area] which had basically none of those qualities.” .................(more)

https://www.fastcompany.com/91242054/amtraks-sleek-new-high-speed-electric-trains-are-coming-next-spring

[RussBLib]

1. I hope those ancient tracks are ready

...surely they have upgraded some tracks?