Boston to Philadelphia a closer approximation. The Acela is scheduled for 5h 1m for that trip. I travel between Boston and New York by train frequently, and even the slower regional service takes < 4 hours. Either way, still not a great comparison to Europe.
Sorry, this was confusing wording on my part -- I was trying to say that Boston/NY or NY/DC is consistently under 5 hours, and that just about everything else is over 5 hours, illustrating a gap in our network.
NYC to DC is also consistently around 3.5 hours, even with the slower NE Regional.
