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Amtrak To Improve NEC With New Trains, More Seats, Same Comfort

Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) Acela high-speed rail service is closing its 20th anniversary now, boasting a continuous growth and pushing the company to improve its services now to satisfy more travelers in the same or less time while maintaining a high level of comfort.
Possible Amtrak future train 1 photo
Photo: Amtrak
It seems people just hate to pay more money on a plane ticket, just to have to go through all that pre-boarding procedures and then finding out they’ll have to cope with bus-like seats for the rest of the trip. On short distances, trains rule the market now with Amtrak’s NEC being the busiest sector.

For less cash, you can board an Amtrak train and don’t have go through all the security hassle, while comfort will not be a problem, since the company’s current seat pitch is set at 42 inches. Way better compared to the standard 30-31 inches in a normal plane.

The trains happen to frequently get supersaturated now, reason for which Amtrak is looking for new ones that will boast the number of seats while still maintaing the same level of comfort.

There are many solutions, including expanding the trains’ length or squeezing the seats a bit, but it seems the company has decided to ditch the two individual locomotives setup and adopt a self-powered-car layout for the whole train.

This means each car will have its own motor underneath, while the passenger area will be increased over the space previously occupied by the 2 locos.

Not only that the train will have a larger capacity, but it will also be able to accelerate and stop faster, with the forces required being equally distributed along the whole length of the train. This will make for faster trips, more happy travelers and airlines loosing more.
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