Amtrak: Acela will remain on stunted schedule indefinitely

BostonHerald.com
Thursday, August 22, 2002

by David Weber

Amtrak's troubled Acela Express rail service will continue to run a significantly reduced fleet of trains ``for the foreseeable future'' due to structural faults found last week in the high-speed cars.

Once again today, Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Van Veen said Acela service will be carried on only five trains.

The trains will make a total of 17 departures from Boston, New York and Washington.

Van Veen said there will be only four express departures from Boston - at 5:15 a.m., 6:15 a.m., 1:15 p.m. and 4:15 p.m.

The mechanical problem, which was discovered through inspections of the trains, is a series of tiny cracks in the shock-absorbing brackets beneath the locomotives.

The heavy stainless steel brackets prevent the trains, which reach speeds of 150 mph, from swaying inordinately.

Officials said inspectors painted a dye on the brackets to detect the cracks, many of which were otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

Inspectors continued to examine the trains after each run yesterday.

The trains are manufactured by Canada-based Bombardier of North America, which has dispatched a small army of engineers and technicians to repair the 13 trains that were taken out of service and maintain the integrity of the five trains continuing to operate.

A spokeswoman for Bombardier could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Van Veen said she could not estimate when more or all of the trains would return to service.

Normally, a full complement of Acela trains would have 50 daily departures from Washington, New York and Boston.

The high-speed trains have been hampered by various glitches since their service was launched in 2000.

Amtrak also has been burdened by a budget crisis during that time, but the Acela trains have helped keep the Northeast Corridor operation solvent, according to officials.

Commuters opted for the trains in great numbers in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes because the airlines were shut down.

But the Acela service itself was shut down completely last week because of the mechanical problems.

Nine of the 18 trains returned to service Monday, but four were quickly taken out of commission when the hairline cracks were detected.