Starting Thursday, Aug. 28, customers can travel on Amtrak’s NextGen Acela – America’s high-speed train – connecting the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston.
Every source that I have found calls it a high speed rail. From checking openrailwaymap, the track speeds for most of the corridor are well above 100 mph. It is high speed rail. It’s one of the worst high speed rail corridors in need of improvement, but it’s still high speed rail.
According to the bog-standard UIC definition, HSR requires dedicated HSL running generally at 155+mph. UIC has a second definition that does allow for upgraded conventional lines running generally at 125mph in corridors without air competition. Acela meets neither of these metrics.
Even aside from the air competition issue, Acela’s general overall speed is not over 125mph or even 100mph due to all the slow sections. For example:
NEC corridor is not high-speed. The end-end average speed is only 70mph, which is pretty middling even for conventional rail.
Every source that I have found calls it a high speed rail. From checking openrailwaymap, the track speeds for most of the corridor are well above 100 mph. It is high speed rail. It’s one of the worst high speed rail corridors in need of improvement, but it’s still high speed rail.
According to the bog-standard UIC definition, HSR requires dedicated HSL running generally at 155+mph. UIC has a second definition that does allow for upgraded conventional lines running generally at 125mph in corridors without air competition. Acela meets neither of these metrics.
Even aside from the air competition issue, Acela’s general overall speed is not over 125mph or even 100mph due to all the slow sections. For example: