Keystone Service
Amtrak's 195-mile (314 km) Keystone Service provides frequent passenger train service along the Amtrak-owned Keystone Corridor and Northeast Corridor between Harrisburg Transportation Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Penn Station in New York via 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.
The trains consist of unreserved coach between Harrisburg and Philadelphia and reserved coach between Philadelphia and New York. There is no business class or snack/food service.
On weekdays there are fourteen Keystone trains in each direction. All trains run between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, though only ten continue along the segment to and from New York. There are six trains on Saturdays and seven on Sundays. All weekend trains make the full trip between Harrisburg and New York.
On the majority of the trains, the journey between Harrisburg and New York takes approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes, including 1 hour and 45 minutes to travel between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. There are also several express trains which cut both journey times by 15 minutes.
As a result of signal and track upgrades (including electrification) that were completed in October 2006, Amtrak now uses exclusively electric locomotives for their Keystone service. Previously, a complicated engine switch was needed at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station that required about twenty minutes to perform. The trains can reach a top speed of 110-m.p.h. (180 km/h) along the Keystone Corridor, a significant improvement in speed from the previous service. The improvements in infrastructure and service are a result of a $145 million investment and partnership between Amtrak, the Federal Transit Administration, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to bring high-speed rail to southeastern Pennsylvania.
Route details
The Keystone Service operates over Amtrak trackage:
- Amtrak Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line, Harrisburg to Philadelphia
- Amtrak Northeast Corridor, Philadelphia to New York
Station stops
- See Keystone Corridor for a full list of stations
Eastbound trains are assigned even numbers from 610 to 662; westbound trains get odd numbers from 601 to 665. Trains make the following station stops; stations served by all trains over the particular section are in bold type.
- Harrisburg Transportation Center
- Middletown
- Elizabethtown
- Mount Joy
- Lancaster
- Parkesburg
- Coatesville
- Downingtown (all but one weekday eastbound train as of November 2005)
- Exton (all eastbound trains as of November 2005)
- Paoli
- Ardmore (all but one weekday round trip and one Saturday westbound train as of November 2005)
- Philadelphia 30th Street Station (several trains only run west from here)
- North Philadelphia
- Cornwells Heights (only one weekday round trip as of November 2005)
