When former President Joe Biden unveiled his US$1.9 trillion infrastructure plan in 2021, he discovered the right place to go public: Philadelphia’s thirtieth Road Station rail yard.
Over the din of crackling wires and grumbling engines, the president made his case for revitalizing the nation’s roads, ports, airports and rail traces.
Behind Biden sat rows of gleaming Amtrak trains. Amongst them was a prototype of NextGen Acela, a modern machine engineered to ship the quickest passenger service in American historical past.
On Aug. 28, 2025, NextGen will lastly hit the rails, after years of delays.
Because the writer of a ebook on the Northeast Hall, the rail line that connects Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, I do know this new practice can’t come quickly sufficient for a lot of seaboard riders, regardless that it launches at a time of diminished political will for passenger rail.
Pink headrests distinguish first-class vehicles from enterprise class on the NextGen Acela trains.
Courtesy of Amtrak
Rail renaissance below hearth
The French-designed, American-manufactured NextGen arrives years late as a result of mechanical defects and failed simulation exams mandated by the Federal Railroad Administration. The brand new Acela will start whisking passengers alongside the hall after a chaotic 12 months that noticed downed wires, busted circuit breakers and brushfires disrupt Amtrak operations.
Gone is Amtrak’s White Home champion, railfan-in-chief Biden, changed by Donald Trump, whose one-time adviser, Elon Musk, known as Amtrak a “sad situation,” and who proposed changing the government-owned provider with non-public opponents.
Former President Joe Biden delivers remarks at an Amtrak fiftieth anniversary occasion in Philadelphia in 2021.
AP Picture/Patrick Semansky
Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner resigned in March 2025, and, in Might, Amtrak minimize 450 worker positions.
NextGen Acela guarantees an American rail renaissance in a second when federally sponsored trains are preventing for his or her lives, as Biden’s infrastructure ambitions fall to an administration bent on chopping authorities prices.
These contradictions, nevertheless, are nothing new.
Not-so-fast trains
America’s love-hate relationship with quick trains stretches again to October 1964, when Japanese Nationwide Railways opened its Shinkansen high-speed line between Tokyo and Osaka.
Japan’s iconic 130-mph bullet practice entranced audiences, a lot of whom noticed footage of the brand new service throughout televised protection of the Tokyo Olympics.
A Shinkansen high-speed bullet practice passes via Tokyo.
Richard A. Brooks/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Individuals wished their very own bullet practice however have been reluctant to pay the huge infrastructural prices of a Shinkansen system. When Congress handed the Excessive-Velocity Floor Transportation Act of 1965, it prioritized the event of trains over the reconstruction of tracks, energy methods and upkeep amenities.
The ensuing companies underperformed.
On Dec. 20, 1967, a fuel turbine practice manufactured by United Plane topped 170 mph whereas testing in New Jersey. However when the so-called TurboTrain entered service, it managed a mean tempo of simply 63 mph on the weaving monitor between New York and Boston.
The electrical-powered Metroliner, which started service in 1969, boasted related potential however hardly ever held triple-digit speeds in service and broke down so usually that its provider, the Penn Central Railroad, struggled to maintain the trains working between New York and Washington.
Historians often regard these high-speed forays as resounding failures.
However riders cherished them.
Technical flaws apart, each the TurboTrain and Metroliner have been successful with northeastern riders, a lot in order that Amtrak retained the Metroliner model till 2006, lengthy after it had retired the ‘60s-era trains.
Reflecting in 1999, rail journalist Don Phillips expressed disbelief “that those dogs were actually popular with the riding public.”
The beginning of Acela
Amtrak opened a brand new period of high-speed rail in 2000 when it launched Acela Categorical.
Derived from France’s acclaimed TGV design, Acela carries passengers at speeds as much as 150 mph on the Northeast Hall.
Just like the Metroliner earlier than it, Acela suffered from design issues and mechanical faults, together with cracked yaw dampers and brake discs, which briefly sidelined the trains.
Rail author Joseph Vranich described Acela as each “Amtrak’s crown jewel” and a “remarkable fiasco.”
And but riders flocked to the service. Acela grew to become considered one of Amtrak’s hottest and profitable trains – so engaging that it lured enterprise vacationers off regional airways.
When Acela entered service in 2000, Amtrak trains claimed simply 37% of air-rail visitors between New York and Washington. By 2021, it had 83%. Between New York and Boston, that determine jumped from 20% to 75%.
Acela trains are well-liked and profitable for Amtrak, partially as a result of they draw so many enterprise vacationers.
Anna Moneymaker by way of Getty Photographs
Acela 2.0
Now, NextGen Acela takes up the fraught legacy of American high-speed rail. What can we anticipate of the brand new practice?
NextGen is quicker than the unique Acela however won’t set any world pace information. Its prime velocity of 160 mph falls in need of international benchmarks set by China’s Fuxing, which hits 217 mph, and Japan’s latest Shinkansens, which attain 200 mph.
With higher tracks and alerts, NextGen might conceivably ramp as much as 186 mph, although such speeds received’t be potential anytime quickly.
For now, NextGen will make do with an imperfect hall. The practice’s light-weight design means sooner acceleration and decrease vitality consumption. An enhanced dynamic tilting system will let carriages lean into curves on the hall’s twisting monitor, so that they lose much less pace on turns. The unique Acela additionally tilted, however not as a lot.
The NextGen Acela loos are extra spacious and have extra touchless options than the earlier design.
Courtesy of Amtrak
The upgraded onboard expertise consists of winged headrests, seat-side USB ports and 5G Wi-Fi. Extra importantly, every NextGen practice can seat 82 extra passengers than its predecessor. When Amtrak’s full fleet of 28 NextGens enters service, sending the first-generation trains into retirement, Acela service capability could have elevated by 4,728 seats.
This determine often is the practice’s biggest achievement in a congested area at a time when Amtrak is posting report ridership.
The consequences of the Northeast’s post-pandemic passenger surge are nowhere extra seen than the Philadelphia rail yard the place Biden spoke 4 years in the past. Amtrak is establishing a brand new upkeep store beside the Schuylkill River that may service NextGen trains and cement Philly’s position within the railroad’s addition of one million annual seats to its non-Acela hall trains. Powered by typical electrical locomotives, these slower, cheaper “Regionals” accounted for 77% of hall ridership in 2024 and can proceed to hold the majority of northeastern passengers.
In the meantime, a quarter-mile south of the upkeep store, America’s third-busiest passenger hub, thirtieth Road Station, is receiving a generational overhaul with a brand new meals court docket, exterior plaza, retailers and underground entry to fast transit.
These tasks exhibit the financial energy of quick, frequent trains in Philly and all through trackside communities of the Northeast. America’s embattled however resilient high-speed rail custom might by no means be the world’s greatest, however even incremental enhancements, like NextGen, can’t assist however rework the locations they serve.
For Amtrak’s hall area, the stakes have by no means been greater.
