page_title: Metroliner (train)
section_title: Change of equipment
hierarchical_section_title: Metroliner (train) / History / Change of equipment
caption_attribution_description: English: Amtrak AEM-7 #943 with a Metroliner at Seabrook, Maryland in 1987
context_page_description: The Metroliners were extra-fare high speed trains between Washington, D.C. and New York City which operated from 1969 to 2006. They were briefly first operated by Penn Central Transportation, then by Amtrak for 35 years.
  Service originally ran with Budd Metroliners, self-powered electric multiple unit cars designed for high-speed service. These proved unreliable and were replaced with locomotive-hauled trains in the 1980s. The trains had reserved business-class and first-class seating. The fastest trips between New York's Pennsylvania Station and Washington, D.C.'s Union Station were scheduled for 2.5 hours, though some midday trains around 1980 had schedules as long as 4 hours.
  Amtrak replaced Metroliner service with the high-speed Acela Express, which runs up to 150 mph in revenue service. The first Acela Express trains ran in 2000, but due to equipment difficulties they did not fully replace the Metroliners until 2006.
context_section_description: Although initially promising, the Budd Metroliners proved unreliable; by January 1978, GG1 and E60 locomotives hauling conventional Amfleet coaches (whose design was based on the Metroliner) had better on-time percentages than Metroliners. In March 1978, Amtrak began sending the cars to General Electric for rebuilding. A GG1/Amfleet set covered one Metroliner round trip on a slower schedule.
  In 1982 Amtrak finished replacing the Budd Metroliner cars, which had developed problems with their motors limiting their speed, with trains powered by the Swedish-developed AEM-7 locomotives pulling Amfleet coaches. Maximum speed of locomotive-hauled Metroliners increased to 120 mph (190 km/h) in 1982 and 125 mph (201 km/h) in 1985. In the six months following October 29, 1990, the morning nonstop express trains were scheduled to cover the distance between Washington and New York in two hours and thirty minutes, an average speed from start to arrival of better than 90 miles per hour.
caption: An AEM-7 hauls a Metroliner in 1987
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