mtrak, still playing catch-up after its Acela Express trains arrived
13 months late from the manufacturers, will add two new high-speed rail trips
between Boston, Providence, and New York beginning April 30, officials said
yesterday.
The additions, geared toward attracting business travelers, will double the weekday schedule to four daily departures, each lasting about 3 hours, 28 minutes. The trains will leave Boston's South Station at 6:12 a.m., 7:12 a.m., 3:12 p.m., and 5:12 p.m., reaching speeds up to 150 miles per hour. The trains will make the same stops: at the Back Bay, Route 128, Providence, and New Haven stations.
In a move to enhance the options of leisure travelers, the national railroad will also introduce two weekend Acela Express trips from Boston to New York, officials said.
Those trains, which will also cost $120 for one-way business class seats and $187 for first class, will depart South Station at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., beginning April 29. Trips to Boston from New York's Penn Station will be offered at 8:03 a.m. and 4:03 p.m.
Amtrak President George Warrington, in a meeting with Globe publisher Richard H. Gilman and reporters yesterday, said the Acela Express has already emerged as a vital aspect of Amtrak's push toward fiscal independence, which the railroad must achieve by 2003 or face dissolution by Congress.
Since it's debut on Dec. 11, Warrington said, the Acela Express has carried more than 47,000 passengers, beating revenue estimates by 10 percent.
''The launch of high-speed service has become a trigger to improve the bottom line,'' Warrington said, noting that Amtrak now carries as many passengers between Washington, D.C. and Boston as the airlines do.
Warrington said the early success of the Acela service has also improved Amtrak's chances of reaching its ultimate goal: winning passage of the High-Speed Rail Act, which would give Amtrak bond-issuing authority to begin $12 billion in maintenance and expansion projects nationwide. Among other routes, the money would pave the way for one more high-speed rail corridor beginning in Boston, and running through Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Montreal.
Currently, the bill has more than 50 co-sponsors in the US Senate, and more than 160 in the House of Representatives. But it has two powerful opponents in the Senate - Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican, and John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, which must approve the bill before it can emerge for a full floor vote.
But Warrington said the climate ''outside the Beltway'' has improved for Amtrak in recent months, and cited the overwhelming support for the bill by the US Conference of Mayors.
Thomas C. Palmer Jr. of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.