page_title: Northeast Corridor
section_title: 2000–present
hierarchical_section_title: Northeast Corridor / History / Founding and operation of Amtrak / 2000–present
caption_attribution_description: English: NTSB Recorder Specialist Cassandra Johnson works with officials on the scene of the Amtrak Train #188 Derailment in Philadelphia, PA. Amtrak Cities Sprinter ACS-64 locomotive, No. 601, is in the background.
context_page_description: The Northeast Corridor is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore to Washington, D.C. The NEC closely parallels Interstate 95 for most of its length, and is the busiest passenger rail line in the United States both by ridership and by service frequency as of 2013. The NEC carries more than 2,200 trains daily. Branches to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Springfield, Massachusetts, and various points in Virginia are not considered part of the Northeast Corridor, despite frequent service from routes that run largely on the corridor.
  The corridor is used by many Amtrak trains, including the high-speed Acela Express, intercity trains, and several long-distance trains. Most of the corridor also has frequent commuter rail service, operated by the MBTA, Shore Line East, Metro-North Railroad, Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, SEPTA, and MARC. The corridor is also shared by a rapid transit system in a short part of New Jersey, the PATH train. Several companies run freight trains over sections of the NEC.
context_section_description: Service with electric locomotives between New Haven and Boston began on January 31, 2000. The project took four years and cost close to $2.3 billion: $1.3 billion for the infrastructure improvements, and close to $1 billion for both the new Acela Express trainsets and the Bombardier–Alstom HHP-8 locomotives.
  On December 11, 2000, Amtrak began operating its higher-speed Acela Express service. Fastest travel time by Acela is three and a half hours between Boston and New York, and two hours forty-five minutes between New York and Washington, D.C.
  In 2005, there was talk in Congress of splitting the Northeast Corridor, which was opposed by then acting Amtrak president David Gunn. The plan, supported by the Bush administration, would "turn over the Northeast Corridor – the tracks from Washington to Boston that are the railroad's main physical asset – to a federal-state consortium."
  With the passage of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, the Congress established the Northeast Corridor Commission (NEC Commission) in the U.S. Department of Transportation to facilitate mutual cooperation and planning and to advise Congress on Corridor rail and development policy. The commission members include USDOT, Amtrak and the Northeast Corridor states.
  In August 2011 the United States Department of Transportation committed $450 million to a six-year project to support capacity increases on one of the busiest segments on the NEC, a 24-mile (39 km) section between New Brunswick and Trenton, passing through Princeton Junction. The Next Generation High-Speed project is designed to upgrade electrical power, signal systems, and overhead catenary wires to improve reliability and increase speeds up to 160 mph (260 km/h), and after the purchase of new equipment, up to 186 miles per hour (299 km/h). In September 2012, speed tests were conducted using Acela train sets, achieving a speed of 165 miles per hour (266 km/h). The improvements were scheduled to be completed in 2016, but have been delayed; the project is now scheduled to be finished in 2019.
  Eleven minutes after leaving 30th Street Station in Philadelphia on May 12, 2015, a year-old ACS-64 locomotive (#601) and all seven Amfleet I coaches of Amtrak's northbound Northeast Regional (TR#188) derailed at 9:21pm at Frankford Junction in the Port Richmond section of the city while entering a 50 mph (80 km/h) speed limited (but at the time non-ATC protected) 4º curve at 106 mph (171 km/h), killing eight and injuring more than 200 (eight critically) of the 238 passengers and five crew on board as well as causing the suspension of all Philadelphia–New York NEC service for six days.
  This was the deadliest crash on the Northeast Corridor since 16 died when Amtrak's Washington–Boston Colonial (TR#94) rear-ended three stationary Conrail locomotives at Gunpow Interlocking near Baltimore on January 4, 1987. Frankford Junction curve was the site of a previous fatal accident on September 6, 1943 when an extra section of the PRR's Washington to New York Congressional Limited derailed there killing 79 and injuring 117 of the 541 on board.
caption: NTSB officials inspect the derailed locomotive 601
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