Acela is too slow, the northeast U.S wants maglev trains

The Northeast Corridor is the United States’ rail transportation flagship, yet it remains a dim imitation of comparable high-speed rail transit lines around the world. Amtrak’s Acela service, the speed boss of a line shared by a handful of conventional regional and commuter rail services along the Atlantic coast, tops out at about 150 mph on some brief stretches of track and looked pretty slick on its 1990s unveiling. In 2013, it’s creeping along at half the speed of the world’s fastest passenger rail services and looks like a prototype of even some of the most sluggish bargain rail equipment outside of North America. It’s easy to say the Acela is “not enough.”