Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

Re:Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower... by ACCount37 on Friday August 29, 2025 @01:19PM (#45066845)

If we price the extra travel time at the level of US minimum wage, $7.25/hr, the extra ~15 hours of travel alone would add up to a price tag of $100. And if you don't have a bullet train, then the time-economy gets even worse.

That sure seems like it explains a lot about the state of US passenger rail.

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Re:Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower... by saubeidl on Friday August 29, 2025 @01:50PM (#45067255)

You could do a sleeper train one can work on. No loss of working time.

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Re:Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower... by ACCount37 on Friday August 29, 2025 @02:12PM (#45067528)

Which makes the train considerably less passenger-dense, and thus makes the train tickets more expensive. In return for reduced value hours: hours that aren't as productive as real office hours, or as entertaining as real vacation hours.

I'm not sure if this would be enough to make coast to coast passenger trains more viable.

[ Parent | on HN ]