Bloomberg 'CityLab,' 4/12/24
An Ode to the Northeast Corridor, the Rail Line That Keeps Amtrak Alive
The new book The Northeast Corridor traces the history of passenger trains from Boston to DC and explains why the current service is so essential — and so frustrating.
After seeing ridership collapse during the Covid pandemic, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is now roaring back to life. Passenger counts on the high-end Acela service soared 38% in its last fiscal year (which ended in September), and overall ridership along the coastal line is above pre-pandemic levels. In November, US President Joe Biden announced more than $16 billion in much-needed infrastructure improvements; in the coming months, Amtrak is slated to introduce modernized trains, with plans to add 50% more service on the Northeast Corridor by 2038.
And Amtrak has some heavyweights pleading its case. Besides the regular Northeast Corridor commuter from Delaware who sits in the White House, former NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority chief Andy Byford, who earned the nickname “Train Daddy” from fans in the Big Apple, now leads Amtrak’s high-speed rail development.
This is all good news for the national passenger rail corporation, which gets more than half its gross ticket revenue from Northeast Corridor trains. (Acela riders alone contributed 22% of Amtrak’s 2023 fares.) But despite a palpable sense of optimism, even Amtrak’s staunchest supporters acknowledge that service on America’s busiest rail line still lags far behind what is available in China, Japan and France, where trains regularly hit 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour) or higher. (The Acela currently maxes out at 150 mph, a speed reached only for a brief stretch outside Boston.)
In his new book The Northeast Corridor, David Alff employs a historical perspective to explain how trains became essential, if frustrating, fixtures of the bustling metropolises from the Mid-Atlantic to New England. He delves into the political decision-making and compromises that made the corridor what it now is and considers how transformative planned upgrades could be.
