To seek $1 billion to make it world class.

Dan Kennedy and Chris Helms both write about how Amtrak is sucking this week, not so much because of track work in Connecticut as the way the railroad is handling replacement bus service and, in Helms's case, not notifying riders with reservations about the suddent change.

Location: Just outside of New York City. Last night. Announcement on Acela #2193, as the train stops:

“The train dumped. We are hoping to reset the brakes and get underway.”

Pause. Noise from front end of train.

“The train dumped again. That is the noise you heard.”

It did sound roughly like someone taking a large dump. Hence, I am guessing, the etymology of the term.

Atari_Age writes that from aboard an Amtrak train stuck in Rhode Island:

... Amtrak, you're a rotting corpse of a once impressive railway system.

You completely and utterly suck. ...

An Acela train hit three workers this afternoon just south of Providence, according to ProJo.com. One worker died.

Of secondary importance, runs on the Providence line are ending at South Attleboro, with buses to Providence.

Rob checks in from somewhere on the tracks along I-95:

Nothing beats sitting in the cafe on the Acela, snug at the center of the 8-car phallus, cruising at half of cruising speed through deathly suburban Connecticut, two beers in and staring at a dozen ugly fat men wearing almost the same blue shirt.

Maureen Rogers explains why she loves taking Acela to and from New York.

Paula hops on the Acela at Back Bay for a trip to New York, and therein lies a tale.

Joseph Vranich, who helped start Amtrak in 1970, now argues that Amtrak must be replaced in the Northeast Corridor, not just because it isn't working well, but because its control over the intercity corridor jeopardizes operations of commuter-rail systems that share those tracks (including our own MBTA):

... We must transfer Amtrak's line to a more responsible entity. Doing so can break the inertia over how to improve the nation's most important railroad passenger line without endlessly preserving the hopeless monopoly known as Amtrak. ...

Jeff thanks the person who let him into line at 7:38 this morning so he could buy his commuter-rail pass (the one he'd forgotten to buy earlier) and get on the 7:40 train.

Maybe it was karmic payback for the guy who punched Jason in the chest on the train. Or for Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service, which the Subway Knitter vows never to use again.