Barriers are in place along Route 95 to keep the curious a safe distance from the electrified wires that are being installed for Amtrak’s new high speed trains.
Commuters who regularly drive along Route 95 in Providence and Pawtucket may have noticed a number of silver barriers cropping up along their route over the past year. Amtrak officials installed those barriers on railroad bridges in preparation for the new, high-speed train service expected to take off by the end of this year. Amtrak has been upgrading the tracks between Boston and New Haven, Conn., from a diesel-powered system to an electric one. The remainder of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor service already has electrified rails.
Electrified trains can run at speeds up to 150 miles per hour in some areas, which is about a 40 mile per hour increase over the diesel engine’s top speed, according to Russ Hall, who handles Amtrak’s media relations in Boston.
A modernized health plan: Supporting cost management and the employee experience.
The Surest health plan came from a group of innovators wondering: What if health care…
Learn More
The barriers, some of which are already covered with graffiti, were put up to prevent people from coming in contact with the electrified wires that have been installed about 18 to 25 feet over Amtrak’s main line, Hall said. They can be easily spotted along Route 95, roads leading to T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, and a Route 95 onramp in front of the Providence Place mall.
“It’s really a barrier to keep people from sticking anything into the electrical wires,” Hall said. “The wire is going to have 25,000 volts going through it. It would be deadly.”
People shouldn’t assume that electricity isn’t running through the wires, since the new trains themselves aren’t yet operational, he said.
“Basically if the wire’s up, it’s energized. If people see a wire up they should think of it as energized; that’s what we’re telling Amtrak employees,” Hall said.
Amtrak has completed installing almost all the necessary poles and wires for the project, although there is still some work to be finished in the Boston area, according to Hall. That work, however, is expected to be finished in August.
When all this is completed and operating, it is expected to significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to travel from Boston and Providence to places like New York City and Washington, D.C.
Besides using the new Acela Express trains on this route, Amtrak will also modify some of its existing trains so they can be used on the electric rail, Hall said. The Acela Express can travel as fast as 150 miles per hour and will be the first high-speed rail service available in the United States, Amtrak officials said.
The modified trains will be referred to as the Acela Regional and will be able to travel at about 135 miles per hour, Hall said. Trains now in service between New York City and Washington, D.C., travel at speeds of about 125 miles per hour, he said.
The Acela Express will make it possible to travel from Boston to New York in about three hours, saving about an hour and 45 minutes off current travel time. And it should shave about one hour and 19 minutes off the trip between Providence and New York and two hours and 15 minutes off the trip to Washington, D.C.
The high-speed service is also expected to help improve business in the Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak carried 1.07 million riders in the Northeast during April, which was the best single month performance for the region since 1991, according to a May 26 company statement. Metroliner service, which competes with airline shuttle service for business travelers, carried almost 200,000 riders in April.
“These numbers help to build momentum for the launch of our Acela high-speed service later this year between Boston and Washington,” said Stan Bagley, president of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak’s fastest growing services, however, were in New York state, eastern Pennsylvania, and Vermont. But company officials said that ridership in New England continued to grow despite the effects of ongoing construction work as Amtrak completes track and electrification projects. NortheastDi-rect ridership between New York and Boston was up 5.4 percent in the first seven months of the fiscal year, Amtrak reported.
