Travelling to New York

It’s Thursday – today I am on Wall Street to see a large financial services customer.

I took the train in from Philadelphia – that was fascinating. Amtrak looks starved of investment. Grand old stations like Philadelphia 30th Street – look magnificent in the main hall; once on the platform it is dark, unkempt and pretty dirty. The new Acela “high speed train” looks good; with a striking similarity to the French TGV or Eurostar. The similarity ends with looks. Turns out that the original plan for the Acela was a fast TGV-like corridor between Washington, New York and Boston. The reality is the investment in new track, dedicated running and then compromises and beaurocratic meddling made the train slower, heavier and unreliable.

On the positive side – the transportation was pretty well integrated. Train to 30th St Station, Acela to Newark, PATH to the World Trade Center site. Pretty good.