Because the extra weight put so much strain on the train body (which was never designed to handle suchloads) trainsets suffered excessive wheel wear, cracks in the yaw damper and brake rotors, and other problems which can probably never be completely fixed. Whereas the original contract called for trains to run 400,000 miles between equipment failures, the Acela can barely manage 20,000 miles.

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How the FRA is Regulating Passenger Rail Out of Existence

I lived in NYC and traveled to Boston a lot when they were building the Acela, I remember being so excited for a high-speed train like the ones I had ridden in Europe for that route.

When the Acela actually launched it was slow and broke down a lot.  I always thought that it was Amtrak that just messed it up, interesting to see that it was actually some obscure bullshit goverment agency.

You can’t compete against the world with your hands tied behind your back.

(via siminoff)