We are taking amtrak on a Mon at 830 from NYC to Providence. I am a bit concerned that the train will arrive too late for our tour at Brown. Does anyone have experience with the on time record for this route? It is regional, running from DC to Boston and beyond.
Also, are there any good restaurants for a relatively quick meal between Brown and the Amtrak station...thanks!

My experiences with Amtrak have been very good. I use it at least once monthly for business trips from Providence to NYC. The only time when I had a delay was during a major snowstorm last winter, otherwise arrival times are very close to schedule. You can walk over to the Providence Place Mall from the station for a good quick lunch - Cheesecake Factory and several other good choices for a quick lunch.

My experiences with Amtrak is that they are usually late. If you are concerned, I would highly suggest an earlier train.

Emily, if they're worried about arriving in time for their appointment, it's not likely that there will be time for lunch.

ducks, Amtrak is usually on time, but they CAN be very late. I agree: if you're worried you should leave earlier (perhaps upgrade to the 8:00 Acela, which leaves 30 minutes earlier and arrives an hour earlier), or schedule a later tour, or go by bus, or rent a car.

Did you know that high-school juniors and seniors can get Amtrak tickets on a buy-one-get-one-free basis if they get a form signed by their guidance counselor? Not good on Acela, and there are blackout period of course.

http://www.campusvisit.com/amtrak/

Er, Emily, sorry about the lunch comment -- meant that there might not be time for a "real" restaurant like the Cheesecake Factory.

No statistics, but our visitors from Spain took Amtrak NYC to Boston last week - took 8:30 PM train and it was over an hour late arriving in Boston.

Their delay was for unknown reason - it was almost on time leaving NYC. But they all reported increased security - so allow time for that - after transit bombings in London.

My experience with Amtrak is that it is on time (within 5 minutes or so) about 85-90% of the time. The rest of the time - it's anybody's guess - I've been delayd up to 3 hours by trees falling across the tracks, fires near the tracks, other stalled trains etc.

If it's imperative that you get there on time I would either take a much earlier train or go up the night before.

I took Amtrak from Boston to New London (the same line that stops in Providence). It arrived within 5-10 minutes of the scheduled arrival time. Amtrak on the north-east corridor seems to be mostly ontime.