So there you are, standing in the La Guardia taxicab line at 5:00 PM on an umbrella ripping Friday evening, anxiously gazing off into the distance like a lost Death Valley prospector hoping to catch a glimpse of a weekend savior ride home. Too bad, you lose, as the news filters down the line that the taxi wait is now up to at least a half an hour, and then, of course, there is still the rush hour crush to plow through on the way into Manhattan. Meanwhile, the Amtrak Acela Express has just finished its 3 hour 30 minute rapid haul from downtown Boston to downtown New York City and its unfrisked, unspindled, unfolded, very relaxed passengers are climbing aboard those unrequited taxis that caused your blood to boil over in vessel popping anger. If you frequent-fly up and down the Northeast Corridor (NEC) and still don't get this train picture, then you obviously deserve to be standing in the dark La Guardia rain.

The Acela, originally called the American Flyer, is a high-speed distant cousin of the French and famous TGV trains running in Europe, with which the tilting Acela only shares its traction components and truck (bogie) technology in common. The Acela has to tilt, because in the Boston-New York stretch alone the tracks have so many curves that if you were to put them in a big bowl of steel spaghetti, the rails would form the equivalent of eleven full circles. Barreling around a curve at 100+ MPH is going to gleefully spill the cognac, not too mention spilling hapless passengers out of their seats, so the trains tilt to keep the center of gravity just right. With a tilting train, all you may feel is a slight downward pull instead of a big sideways push on high-speed curves. As part of the Acela rollout, sections of the NEC track were upgraded to allow speeds up to 150 MPH. The Acela Express service was originally planned to start November 1999, but the to-be-expected technical bugs delayed service commencement until December 2000.

The Canadian company Bombardier led the winning bid consortium to build the Acela trains for Amtrak. Bombardier also holds an exclusive license to use the TGV technology in North America. But Bruins fans needn't fret about the Canadians snatching one more economic Stanley Cup from them because part of the deal was that the Acela's had to be mostly built in America, which turned out to be at Bombardier plants in Barre, Vermont and in Plattsburgh, New York. It was also a sweetheart deal for Amtrak as it got the Acela for no taxpayer money down.

Bombardier put $600+ million on the cuff for Amtrak to purchase the Acela's, including additional electric locomotives and part of three new maintenance facilities, as well as a pledge to operate and maintain the equipment for 20 years. So how does Bombardier get all its Canadian millions back? It's a pay as you go arrangement, with the company getting paid from Acela Express revenues, which had been pegged by Amtrak at a very cool $200 million per year. And if the Acela ever fails to meet its performance specs, Bombardier is subject to severe financial penalties. The U.S. Congress also had a big say in the deal.

It all makes you wonder why the Bush Administration is currently giving Amtrak such a hard time as this very sweet Acela financing arrangement sets an incredible precedent for remaking American high-speed rail transit on the cheap. Meanwhile, the U.S. airlines are lining up at the White House door and getting their multi-billion dollar bailout rice bowls filled. It's all something to think about as the countryside goes whizzing past your Acela window.

In any event, something was apparently lost in the Canadian to American translation, as the Acela trainsets somehow ended up being built about four inches wider than originally specified, limiting their maximum permissible tilt from 6.5 degrees to 4.2 degrees. It was thought this extra girth would slow them down through the curves, but in the end, the MacDonald's-diet Acela's were able to hit their high-speed commute numbers as originally planned. If all goes according to schedule, the Acela Express can make the Boston - New York trip in three hours and thirty minutes (down from 4 to 5+ hours), with an eventual goal in several years of making it in just three hours and ten minutes. The Acela Express also currently slices 15 minutes off the New York to Washington run, which on the Acela takes 2 hours and 45 minutes instead of 3 hours via Amtrak's 125 mph Metroliners.

I recently took another Acela Express trip from Boston's South Station to New York Penn Station. As before, it was a revelation. The first time I took the regular Amtrak train from New York City to Boston was a grueling, stop and go five and a half hour trip and swore never to be passenger-derailed again. The Acela Express experience can not be more different. And it certainly could not have been more different from taking the airline shuttle. The first thing you immediately notice at the no-waiting line Amtrak station is the absence of bazooka-armed security guards. Moreover, nobody is demanding you walk barefoot through the terminal and spill out your personal suitcase life onto a Formica inspection desk for all to see. And finally, the passengers are not all suspiciously eyeing each other, looking for the first tell tale signs of unusual behavior and screaming at the guards to body tackle the poor perp. The passenger stress level in getting on the Acela express is comparable to that of getting into a warm bubble bath.

Something else worth noting was the visibly obvious passenger-to-passenger good will. People appeared genuinely happy to be on the Acela and liked sharing their good feelings about it with each other. This is how jet airline travel must have been when it first became commercially popular fifty or so years ago. Passenger and pilot alike shared in a communal aren't we lucky to be having this experience--instead of everyone now nervously peering out the airplane windows, desperately looking for the contrail of a Stinger antiaircraft missile rapidly bearing down on them.

The passenger cabin of the Acela was remarkable for its cleanliness, passenger stretch out spaciousness, and overall accommodations. Power outlets are on the passenger armrests so you can plug in your laptop and do non-battery draining useful work while en route. The only items missing to complete a perfect business office on high speed wheels experience are shared printers and wireless high speed Internet access, neither of which should be a major logistical problem to implement.