Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools
Sections
Search the Archives
Browse the Archives

Route Name

Follow Amtrak Online
 
Home > Archives > Celebrating the X2000 in West Palm Beach, 1993.

Celebrating the X2000 in West Palm Beach, 1993.

Color film slide showing a cake made to celebrate the X2000 stop in West Palm Beach, Fla., in June, 1993, during the train's national tour.

Celebrating the X2000 in West Palm Beach, 1993.

As Amtrak explored the development of high-speed rail in the early 1990s, it leased two European high-speed trainsets for testing: the Swedish X2000 and the German Intercity Express (ICE). Both trainsets were used in revenue service on the southern portion of the Northeast Corridor in 1993. The equipment was also put on display in cities across the country.

Designed and built by Asea Brown Boveri, Inc. for the Swedish State Railways, the X2000 was tested by Amtrak because it could travel at higher speeds than conventional trains on existing main line track; unlike contemporary French and Japanese high-speed trainsets, it did not require new, dedicated tracks.

On the way from Tampa to Miami during its national tour, the X2000 made a stop at the historic West Palm Beach station on June 4, 1993. Rail advocates served this cake shaped like the train.

Photographer: Ingwar Afeldt. From the Ingwar Afeldt Collection.