Booming elsewhere, high-speed rail sees delays in US

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — In November the Eurostar bullet-train blew the doors off commuter rail travel, sprinting the 213 miles (343 kilometers) from London to Paris in two hours 15 minutes -- and leaving tortoise-slow US trains in the dust.

Over a similar distance -- Washington to New York -- America's lone high-speed train, the Acela Express, takes a full 45 minutes longer.

Top speed for nearly every other passenger train in the United States? A pedestrian 79 miles per hour (127 kilometers per hour), with average US speeds far slower.

"Oh, I think it's awful. It's really slow," groaned retired speech pathologist Eleanor Herman, preparing to depart from Washington's Union Station aboard the Northeast Regional, which like the Acela is run by national rail...