The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on a proposal by some grad students at the University of Pennsylvania for re-doing the Northeast Corridor the right way. The catch? It would cost roughly $98 billion, part of which would go for a new inland route through Connecticut and a tunnel under Long Island Sound.

Rob Bellinger uses the crappy WiFi on an Acela train to New York to complain about, among other things:

Now, the train has sat at New Rochelle for a HALF HOUR because, in the words of the conductor, the train operations office "forgot about us."

I know, I know, sounds silly for a train that, at best, only gets to top speed on small sections of track in Rhode Island. But that's exactly the problem, Paul Levy recently reported the driver of the 4 p.m. Boston-bound train always seems to go too fast on that stretch:

... Last week, when I took it (Dec 1), you could actually smell the asbestos in the back car as he had to jam on the brakes before going over one of the bridges. ...

A suicide-by-train near Philadelphia (in a word: blecch) and downed wires outside Providence made Fung Wah look like a good alternative along the Northeast Corridor today. Passengers on one train stuck near Providence for four hours issued desperate tweets for help because they were down to one working toilet, but discovered nobody at Amtrak actually uses Twitter.

Diane Danielson, who was on the Providence train from hell, tweeted at one point:

Irony = getting an email titled "Amtrak rewards" while stuck on train that is nearly 3 hours late.

It could have been a lot worse for this Canton resident, struck by a speeding Acela train that hit him while he was crossing the tracks trying to get to HoneyDew Donuts™:

Canton Journal reports:

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.

Bill is not real happy with Amtrak:

I had a miserable trip on a regional Amtrak last night from Stamford, CT back to Boston. The train was an hour-plus late and jammed with people. I finally found a seat, and quickly discovered why no one was sitting there. It was next to a bathroom that had a backed up toilet, and the smell was--how to say this politely--overwhelming. ...