there's a light rail that takes about... 40-50 minutes IIRC. The Marc train should take about ?20 minutes, but I have never caught that.

There we go. Schedule says 20 minutes.

Thanks, 'pode!

Turns out Acela goes straight to BWI, but the Amtrak site (which is stupid) wasn't making that clear.

Now on to scramble for a flight out....

Oh, yes it does.

On a short trip like Philly-BWI where there isn't a great deal of straight track, the Acela isn't much faster than the local. Also, the Acela seems to break down a lot more. For the price it isn't really worth it especially if there's a good chance he'll sit for two hours on a siding in Wilmington waiting for a maintenance crew.

That said, if you already bought the ticket, don't worry too much, the train will get there all the same, and either way it's a low-hassle way to travel.

Acela was the only one leaving at the right time. And yes, I checked the one that left before it, and it was delayed by an hour, so there's a good chance he'll be stuck. Which will suck, because the timing is already really tight.

You want to know the funny thing? He was supposed to come back tomorrow. The reason he didn't want to be stuck in Philly is that his wife got tickets for them to see Arianna Huffington tomorrow night here in CA and he promised her he'd go with her. All this running around is out of devotion. It's really kind of sweet.

I popped in to see if I could help, and then I thought to myself "Arianna Huffington. . .I've never heard her music. . ." and then I realized my context was all wrong and then I thought of Demon Sheep.

You Californahoovians, you.

Glad everything seems to be working out.

hrm. My friend just posted this update to facebook:

Amtrak delay in Philly...2 people were hit by a train. We passed the scene very slowly as CSI was investigating and news media was there. Cleanup wasn't complete....we saw body parts basically everywhere- pretty gruesome. There was also an Acela train with a giant dent in the front.

Hope your boss wasn't on that train :/

Oh wow, the Acela with the dent must have been the previous one with the delay. His train was only 20 minutes late. They told him there was a 'service interruption' down the line. That must have been it.

In any case, he made it to the gate with about 2 minutes to spare and is now somewhere over NE Alabama, so it's all good and I get a gold star.

Gah. Just read the Philly Inquirer story. That's the train I was trying to put him on, but he was worried he wouldn't have enough time to pack up and get to the train station. Crap. I feel like I have a huge rock in my stomach.