I've reached the conclusion that the East Coast... "commuter" corridors are simply a different matter, although from what I read they have problems, too.
I live at a cross country termination point, and I have had friends and family travel here by Amtrak. They are always, invariably, many hours late.
For their return trips, the departing trains generally leave from this originating station on time. They simply have no chance to make it down the tracks in a fashion that comes anywhere close to maintaining their schedule.
As offensive as anything, is the simple unreality of the schedules and their continued persistence of said schedules, year after year.
If they were more truthful, at least the unsuspecting one-time or occasional traveller could plan accordingly.
> I've reached the conclusion that the East Coast... "commuter" corridors are simply a different matter
I reached the same conclusion and have had similar experiences to your friends and family. 5 years ago I took the Charlotte-Raleigh train a handful of times over the period of a year or two. Only once was it on time when arriving at my destination, and only once did it depart from my departing station late (by an hour). The worst I experienced was about a 5 hour delay in-transit, putting the time at 2AM instead of 9PM.
I quickly dropped the train as a reliable mode of transportation.
You're spot on. The East Coast corridors are managed by a separate business unit than the Midwest routes. Differences in managent vision and population circumstances have led to the large gap in quality between the two services. Essentially one management unit sees train service as a 'public duty' and the other management unit sees train service as 'value creation', leading to a service in disrepair with little/no profits and a service with decent quality and sustainable profits, respectively.
I doubt a lot of people commute daily between NYC and BOS, but you're right, its worlds apart from "cross country" travel. The Northeast also has a high concentration of large cities
I live at a cross country termination point, and I have had friends and family travel here by Amtrak. They are always, invariably, many hours late.
For their return trips, the departing trains generally leave from this originating station on time. They simply have no chance to make it down the tracks in a fashion that comes anywhere close to maintaining their schedule.
As offensive as anything, is the simple unreality of the schedules and their continued persistence of said schedules, year after year.
If they were more truthful, at least the unsuspecting one-time or occasional traveller could plan accordingly.