With much fanfare, Amtrak has introduced its new Northeast Corridor service, with new high-speed trainsets, and a new brand name - Acela. Unfortunately, to many railfans, the new name, and its accompaning paint scheme are about as inspiring as the latest luxury car model from Oldsmobile or Toyota. Over the past few months, people have been trying to help Amtrak come up with a better name and look for the new service. Unfortunately, the combined efforts of the railfan community seem to have come up short. While there were a pair of winners for best name, the winning entry for best paint scheme came out tied with Amtrak's current uninspiring choice. (I'm not sure if that means the entries weren't inspiring, or that Amtrak's choice is more inspt\iring than I thought - you decide... -- The Webmaster) With that said, here are the winners from those entries sent in...
For the name portion of the contest, there were ties for both first and second place. The second place winners were Philip Breault's suggestion of "American Flyer," and Amtrak's current choice of "Acela." The winners were A.J. Kliepass's suggestion of "Atlantic Clipper Service," and Jack Bleiberg's entry, "Northeast Direct Express."
For the paint scheme portion of the contest, the runner-up was A.J. Kliepass, with the scheme matching the Atlantic Clipper name:
Our winning scheme was submitted by Jack Bleiberg:
which tied with the existing scheme chosen by Amtrak for the service:
If you'd like to take a look at the rest of the entries, and see what didn't make it into the running, you may browse through the entries below: