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The ongoing discussion about the future implementation of high-speed rail (HSR) in the Northeast Corridor (NEC) is full of questions on the feasibility of HSR and the ability of Amtrak to implement it. Indeed, the introduction of the Acela Express in the past decade was not free from operating problems, but even with trains running below their full potential, the Amtrak NEC had substantial market growth. Thus, it is not clear if a true HSR service is feasible in the NEC, and if the current prospects are potentially effective. To evaluate the performance of the NEC and its main services in FY 2002-2012, and make inferences about HSR in the NEC for the next 30 years, we use productivity analysis. We employ a non-parametric single factor productivity (SFP) Trnqvist trans-log index approach with several metrics. We set ridership, revenue, revenue passenger-miles (RPM), and available seat-miles (ASM) as outputs, and operating costs as input. In this way, we provided guidelines and