Not a moving Acela story

The same thing happened to me at Bridgeport a few months ago - MetroNorth trains were speeding by, our lonely Acela train was just standing by (but I have to say, the engineer had a great Philadelphia accent, which he used to give us regular updates - he was also was one funny dude). I actually arrived at NYP 1 hour and 15 minutes late, but even with the delay, and relatively high cost of the trip (I paid about $150 for that leg), I still enjoyed it way more than driving or taking a bus. There is so much space (I'm 6'3"), you can get up and walk around, and since it was a Friday evening, few people were missing meetings and they were actually kind of social.

All of that said, this type of thing is, of course, unacceptable. I think that the rail ownership situation in the U.S. is a big part of the reason why we cannot seem to get decent intercity rail service (I understand that Amtrak owns most of hte NE corridor track, but still, we need to have everyone be able to play on everyone else's line under reasonable terms - otherwise this standard gauge thing was a waste). I certainly understand why the MBTA or CSX is going to give dispatch priority to their trains, but we have to work out a better way in the congested northeast corridor. The federal Surface Transportation Board could probably be helpful here. I know that GE has developed a very efficient rail network monitoring and dispatch system that effectively increases the capacity of the existing rail resources - perhaps there could be some kind of collaboration to see if that would help up here, particularly while all this construction is being undertaken. We might be able to do with that what the FAA's NextGen air traffic control system will do with air travel (yes, I understand that the FAA program is fundamentally different in that it will allow planes to fly more direct routes, while trains cannot move off the tracks, but there are still efficiencies to be gained).

Or, we could just get on with the real solution and build the high-speed inland route (something which should have received more more attention a few weeks back when the coastal route had to be shut down during the floods). Ever taken a close look at just how far (or not) the rail bed is over sea level in RI and eastern CT? We definitely need to think more about transport redundancy, but this is for another thread.