ACELA

In the past couple of weeks, we've shown you pictures of the fastest trains in the world. They're in France, Germany, Spain, Taiwan and Japan.

Old Chip and Chippie have had the pleasure of riding one of those trains, from Barcelona to Madrid. What a great experience that was!

In order to run such trains, there must be improved track maintenance and a definite end to allowing auto/truck traffic to cross the tracks. This means bypasses or overpasses. This means a lot of money.

In America, there is really only one fast train. It is usually called "The Acela" and it runs on this line:



The Acela, which has many stops on its route, can briefly attain 150 mph on some stretches, but in gneral, tracks in the Eastern corridor are not constructed to handle high speeds.

This is a picture of the Acela sitting in the station at Providence R.I.
The most serious incident which the Acela has had was striking a teenaged boy who attempted to cross the tracks in front of it. The Acela has vastly increased customer use of Amtrak in the Boston-Washington corridor.

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If the US government would spend as much money on fast trains as it spends on airlines and trucking routes, there is little doubt that we could once again enjoy rail travel.