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Comment by ndespres | Hacker News Reader

I've just begun commuting into NYC on Amtrak, and it leaves on time to the [i]second[/i]. After years of my commute impacted by subway delays, NJ Transit delays, and an independent ferry service that had its share of problems, Amtrak is really quite refreshing. I had forgotten that things were supposed to be on a schedule!

I lived in NYC for 5 years, and had no idea that the subways were on a fixed schedule. I thought they just came when they came.

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In some ancient and mean bureaucratic twist of history, Amtrak owns and operates all that track (at least on the Northeast Corridor) and NJT trains have to slow down and move their butts out of the way for any Amtrak trains needing to pass.

Counter-anecdote: for the past ~5 years, I've been taking Amtrak (usually Northeast Regional) between NYC and Boston every couple of months. Trains leaving Boston South Station almost always leave exactly on time. On the other hand, the odds of an on-time departure from NY Penn Station have been maybe 20%. Of the 80% of trains that leave late, the vast majority do not make up the delay over the course of the trip, and therefore arrive late in Boston.

That's odd. I commute by njtransit, but my station is also an Amtrak station, and I often hear of massive (30-90 min) delays.

The stations shared by NJ Transit and Amtrak are both coming in on the tunnel under the Hudson, which has limited capacity and delays both trains, though I understand that usually Amtrak gets priority. Just another headache of the Port Authority of NJ, NY, the MTA, Amtrak and whoever else fighting to get in to Penn Station.

I commute now from Albany where there's no tunnel, we are east of the Hudson the whole time and nobody to fight with to get in to Penn (except when, due to every other train having delays getting OUT of Penn there are sometimes no free tracks to come in on, but this is rare).

General rule with Amtrak in the Northeast: - Acela is pretty reliable - NE Regional and Keystone are a bit less so (Acelas seem to get priority when things are going sour) - All bets are off for everything else (i.e. anything not going from Boston to DC, or NY to Harrisburg). Amtrak doesn't own those lines, and massive delays are common.

Chicago Metra (suburban heavy rail trains) runs on schedule like that, almost always. The CTA trains (the "El") seemed much more random to me when I lived there, but it was over 10 years ago now.

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