Yesterday, the railroad ran three out of its 10 Acela trips with substitute trains, and Connell said about half the 15 Acela trips normally run on weekdays will be covered with slower-speed equipment today.
She said other Amtrak passengers who normally take Acela trips would be accommodated on regular Amtrak trains running on other schedules. She said prospective passengers should check with Amtrak reservation lines or ticket agents for the latest schedule information.
The high-speed service was suspended in the Northeast on Friday after Amtrak discovered brake problems.
Officials of the government-funded passenger railroad service had said on Saturday that they would be forced to suspend the high-speed service in the Northeast at least through Wednesday and probably for more than two months.
Millimeter-sized cracks were found in 300 of the Acela fleet's 1,400 disc brake rotors.
Amtrak normally runs 15 Acela weekday roundtrips between New York and Washington and 11 between New York and Boston, representing one-fifth of the Amtrak service in the Northeast corridor.
About 9,000 to 10,000 riders on average had been using the Acela service on weekdays.
Connell said Amtrak was trying to decide yesterday whether enough replacement equipment was available to handle additional Acela trips.
The Acela trains are built by Bombardier Inc., based in Montreal, and the brakes are under warranty.
Bombardier has started to replace some parts and has brought in extra people who are working 24 hours a day in Washington, Boston, and New York to replace the faulty brakes, Helene Gagnon, a company spokeswoman in Quebec, said Saturday.
The cracked brake rotors were discovered when a Federal Railroad Administration worker did a routine inspection Thursday night after a high-speed run to test whether Amtrak could speed up the Acela trains slightly in New Jersey on curves between Trenton and Newark. Amtrak's 20 Acela trains each have 72 brakes.
Amtrak officials said no brake failures had occurred as a result of the cracks, and the suspension of service was a precautionary measure.
