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IIRC, my mom took the Metroliner in the Penn Central era (or error!) a few times - federal job.
The original Metroliner was an offshoot of the successful Silverliner trains that SEPTA bought for PRR and Reading suburban routes. They were a gigantic leap forward in performance and comfort, but not without their issues, mostly made up by irate unions. The Pioneer III bogies worked great, though they never really did ride well...
For example, the braking system was a disk system that delivered a high rate of performance. PRR crews didn't like it and didn't want to learn how to use it, so it was removed and replaced with a conventional system.
The Metroliner was a bigger disaster, because the government was involved, too, and knew basically nothing about train design. The PRR insisted on a bogie design basically copied from a switching locomotive, for a train designed to run at 160mph. The feds insisted on having 1/2 the cars equipped with Westinghouse equipment, and 1/2 equipped with GE equipment. Somebody insisted on having a full on braking system installed as a backup to the electropneumatic one that was already being successfully used elsewhere.
The 'dynamic' braking system had its grids located under the car, as was typical American practice back then. When slowing from 100 mph (the restricted top speed in service!), they'd naturally throw off a lot of heat. Well, located next to the brake grids was the control boxes - semiconductors. So a train would stop, then die quickly because the electronics would get cooked while stopped at the station. The Penn Central (who didn't want anything to do with the project, but had to participate because federal approval for other stuff required it), would 'help' at times by crossing the train to another track, so it'd die and block up service.
The cars weighed about 160,000 lbs and had 1200 HP. No attempt was made to resolve the issues of bad track dynamics, especially given the Corridor was jointed track still (!). The power use would trip substations and burn up electrical equipment along the tracks.
Everyone pointed fingers at everyone else for these issues. It was a mess. One presentation I went to on it, the guy said they had a big celebration when they got a 6 car train to go from Newark to Trenton without breaking down.
Amtrak inherited this disaster, bought up a few hundred non powered train cars on Pioneer III bogies and disc brakes - the actual car body was great and passengers liked it. Far lighter (though still heavy), then bought a few GE electric freight locomotives for 120mph use, which promptly derailed in testing (two times they ended up in ditches). Then they came to their senses, tested an ASEA RC4, and an Alsthom of some type. The ASEA won, and EMD partnered up to Americanize it, and it became the very successful AEM-7, only retired a few years ago.
Back in the Metroliner days, Eastern Airlines had a shuttle service between NY and DC. You basically showed up, paid the price of a ticket, and boarded. They had a billboard in Delaware by the tracks that basically said "If you took the Eastern Shuttle, you'd be there now!"
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