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Amtrak Adds Wi-Fi On Acela Trains
In the old days, there were two main ways to get anywhere from Boston to Washington using public transit. Those two ways were Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses. Over the past few years, new bus services that travel along the northeast corridor have popped up including Bolt Bus and Megabus. Both of these new bus services offer very inexpensive fares and also offer free Wi-Fi service (Bolt Bus is partially owned by Greyhound). When I speak with entrepreneurs that travel anywhere from Boston to Washington, many have started to use the buses over Amtrak because of the Wi-Fi and the lower cost.
Last week Amtrak announced the launch of Wi-Fi service on their fleet of Acela Express trains. Acela Express is the luxury, “faster” train service that runs from Boston to Washington and costs a bit more than the traditional Amtrak train service. The new Wi-Fi service is free to all travelers.
The free Wi-Fi service is also available inside the stations that Acela services including NY Penn Station and Washington Union Station. So now we have a new place to use free Wi-Fi in Penn Station!
I wonder how the Acela Wi-Fi handles travel inside the tunnels. It’s great news that Amtrak is finally starting to move forward with technology on their trains. While the announcement notes that there are no firm plans to add Wi-Fi to their other trains, the sooner they add the service, the sooner they could look to potentially taking people off the buses and onto the trains. And frankly, if the service quality is good, Amtrak should charge a small fee for it. If the airlines charge, so should Amtrak.
Not worth it. The only thing that the wi-fi is worth is picking up email, and most phones do that. They block all streaming sites. Why bother. angain most people who have the cash to pay the acela premium have phones that stream video and music, or have an ipad, iphone, kindel … etc.
And the other thing – they have exactly the same menu as the other trains in the snack car. Granted the cares are cleaner, newer. and if you want to pay 225% more for … newer cleaner … acela is for you.
BTW: it is also a lot more crowded that the regular train! And most cars are nosier.
Sorry, that would be varies (sp)…
What amazes me the most is how much Amtrak varys all over the country. I’ve been on the Empire Builder in an old run down car that doesn’t even have electrical outlets, and now their are other lines in the US in which you can have wi-fi. I’m confused. I also should not be able to fly for less money than taking the train. I love train travel, but it is also supposed to be economically efficient as well.
A Ride on the Empire Builder | Amtrak
Or, you could just fly like most people do and skip the low budget nonsense of a train. Most flights I’m on these days have WiFi in them as well.
Acella is not low budget and it is faster than the flight from Boston to NYC
Allen wrote: “While the announcement notes that there are no firm plans to add Wi-Fi to their other trains, the sooner they add the service, the sooner they could look to potentially taking people off the buses and onto the trains.”
At the beginning of March, Amtrak issued an RFQ for deployment of Wi-Fi on the fleet nationwide. The RFQ closing date is April 5th, but there is no specific timeline to mass deployment yet.
Correction: “East River Tunnel” that should be.
I rode Acela back to Boston on the last day of February… although technically they were only telling the media that their first day of WiFi was March 1st, it was fully operational one day in advance. All of the pamphlets were already distributed in the seatback pockets and little stickers were on all of the windows stating, “your seat is now a hotspot”. The service was good. It obviously wasn’t as fast as a high speed connection at home, but it was certainly good and it worked without any hitches in both the Hudson River Tunnel and through the cavern beneath Providence, RI station. I have to say… I was able to send off a few work e-mails, send/receive a few personal ones, browse the web, look around on GoogleEarth and Facebook a bit. It made my train trip (NYP to BOS) even more productive than ever and it made the trip seem a little shorter than it used to…. I was pulling into Boston before I even realized it. My only complaint is that I regularly use the Acela First Class lounge (Club Acela) and it seems the promised WiFi connections in those lounges only work when the attendant “reboots” the system, which it seems they have to do rather frequently.