New York to Boston, From the Head End of an Acela

On October 1, 2009, my special friends at Amtrak arranged to allow me to accompany the head end crew of eastbound Acela Express Train # 2158 between New York's Penn Station and Boston. Although I've ridden many routes and trains around the USA over the years, this was my first trip between New Haven and Boston, along the fabled ex New Haven "Shore Line." I quickly discovered that photography from an Acela is quite challenging. Besides the obvious issue of speed, the steep slope of the windshield and wide "dashboard" inside an Acela cab made it difficult to actually get the camera close enough to the window to avoid glare or distortion. The windshield on our power unit, which had come through from Washington, also seemed to have more than its share of bugs that had met their fate enroute and splattered their remains on the glass! I found it nearly impossible to avoid some of these bug "smears" in shooting pictures through the windshield, as is evident in many of the photos here. Neither did the weather help much, at least between New York and New Haven, where very dark overcast and rain first greeted our train upon exiting the East River Tunnels. Fortunately, the rain let up a bit by the time we started to climb the approach to Hell Gate Bridge in Queens, and my first half presentable pictures took place at that point. Later on in the journey, the sun actually managed to break through the thick clouds for a few sporadic moments in eastern Connecticut and again as we neared Boston. For any who wonder what the busy, ex New Haven main line looks like today, as I often did, I hope the representative photos in this album, despite their flaws, will be enjoyable and informative.