Why you should never travel on Acela Express {Gadling}

Mar 8th 2009 5:16PM The problem with Acela is its marginal advantage over the Northeast Corridor line. You paying $60 from New Haven to NYC is silly, of course when you have other decent options. Just like paying twice as much for Acela service over NEC is silly when the price of the latter is half and the time difference is under an hour. However I will be getting from NYC to Wilmington for $52 without much hassle. I could take a Chinatown bus to Wilmington for $30 or so or a Chinatown bus to Philly and then SEPTA to WIlmington for about $20 but with three suitcases the train is much simpler. Our biggest problem is that we did high speed rail on the cheap. We don't truly have high speed and didn't even eliminate some grade crossings between New Haven and Boston. We need real high speed rail that can sustain an average speed of at least 125mph. From Paris to Marseille on the TGV is a little over 3 hours for a greater distance than from DC to Boston. That's what we need and then people will really start taking the train.