NY-AC Express Train Update from Phila. Inquirer

[Poshua]

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story about the NY-AC express service on October 15, but I just noticed it today. It doesn't give exact information on fares or commencement of service, but it does provide a few updates:

<ul type="square">[*]Service will start in late 2007 or early 2008. When the service was first announced (June 2006), NJ Transit had projected a start date in late 2007. [*]Fares will be "competitive, not necessarily comparable" with existing Amtrak-NJ Transit train service requiring a change in Philadelphia. The Inquirer pegs that price at $53 to $87; to arrive at those numbers, they must have used fares for Amtrak Regional service. Previous coverage had suggested the pricing would be in line with Amtrak's more expensive Acela, not the Regional. The one-way NY-Philly Acela fare for this Friday is $135 at 5 PM, $122 at 6 PM. Since the story didn't explicitly state that Regional service would be the price guide, I suspect the fares will be more in line with the Acela prices.[*]Trip time will be 160 minutes, with one intermediate stop in Newark.[*]There will be nine round trips each weekend, and each train will have 300 seats. Previous reports had said as many as 75% of tickets would be reserved for the subsidizing casino operators (Borgata and HET) with only 25% of tickets (that is, 675 each way per weekend) to be sold on the open market. So, this won't (at least initially) be a very high-capacity venture with lots of tickets to sell, making it easier to hit these high price targets.[/list]