AMTRAK NEC: Springfield Shuttle/Regional/Valley Flyer/Inland Routing

A number of good points have been raised both pro and con. My sense is the most devastating critique is two parts -- the Commonwealth of Mass has not really shown much desire to reopen the route and, if open, the inland route parallels the shoreline route albeit at a significant disadvantage of time and population. There is another forum (which I lack the talent to link) that considers the possibility of restoring LD service from Maine to NYC. The most logical route for that service would have it run through Worcester and then either to New London or Providence and then New London. In either case, Worcester (and points not on the shoreline) get service and Mass wouldn't be footing the entire bill. It also more closely approximates the VA service in that the Maine run would be a spur off the NEC rather than a longer loop around it.
Of course there are still issues. The limitation of services east of New Haven would impact the number of runs, but the planners of the Maine service do not envision NEC type frequencies. These could be a morning and evening pair of trains that could either prove in (or prove out) the market. I'll defer to the more knowledgeable on the merits of that service. One wrinkle I will add is the possibility of running from Maine to Worcester to Springfield to New Haven to NYC. It still encroaches on CSX territory and that issue remains to be resolved but it does avoid the shoreline bridge issue.

Mark

The EGE wrote:

MattW wrote:Unless commercial traffic needs the bridges, Amtrak should take the USCG to court over the drawbridges. I fail to see why pleasurecraft should take precedence over a transportation backbone.

Longstanding precedent is that the first user gets precedent - any waterway that was used before Amtrak cannot be blocked unless no traffic whatsoever remains, but anyone who wishes to use a previously unused waterway or create a new one (i.e, canal) must negotiate with the railroad.

You are right, there is no reason to allow pleasure craft to take precedence, but there's not much of a way around it. Congress would have to make a law saying that Amtrak has precedence (I don't think the Connecticut government is about to challenge an agency whose academy is in New London) and given that pleasure craft owners tend to have money and influence, you know exactly how that fight will go.

Pleasure craft routinely wait at Canal St. in Chicago till Amtrak deems it an appropriate time to open. I hear them over my kayak's marine radio all the time. One guy waked me, and then sat glumly waiting at the bridge while I paddled by and gave him a piece of my mind over the radio for Amtrak to hear. They didn't raise the bridge for him till just after I got out at my destination dock. Despite the fact that no train passed in that time period!

So I don't think the precedent is cut and dried. For that matter, barge traffic also waits at Canal St. Maybe the problem in Connecticut is the bridges are so difficult and time-consuming to open that even if the boats are forced to wait, there's just no window for opening the bridges that doesn't delay a train.

They should've installed the world's largest vertical lift:
http://www.historicbridges.org/bridges/ ... is/sblift/

The Inland Route parallels the Shore Line at a pretty good distance. Hartford is 45 minutes driving off the NEC; Springfield is almost 90. Worcester is an hour to Providence, or 90 on commuter rail to South Station.

As population goes, the Shore Line has Providence and New London, and not a hell of a lot else. The Inland Route has Hartford, Springfield, and Worcester.

As an aside, Providence-Worcester will never happen as a Maine service route. It's almost exactly the wrong direction, and avoids none of the Shore Line bottlenecks.

The EGE wrote:The Inland Route parallels the Shore Line at a pretty good distance. Hartford is 45 minutes driving off the NEC; Springfield is almost 90. Worcester is an hour to Providence, or 90 on commuter rail to South Station.

As population goes, the Shore Line has Providence and New London, and not a hell of a lot else. The Inland Route has Hartford, Springfield, and Worcester.

As an aside, Providence-Worcester will never happen as a Maine service route. It's almost exactly the wrong direction, and avoids none of the Shore Line bottlenecks.

The Shore Line also has Amtrak control, electrification, higher speeds and an overall better railroad. You seem to forget about Route 128 which is a big stop. College towns New London, Kingston and Providence help a great deal too. Military bases help too and there are none on the Inland Route. The Inland Route can't possible equal the Shore Line Route. I remember when Amtrak ran one New York - Boston round trip through Springfield and it was lucky if this train had four cars while the trains through Providence often were double that size. Who wants to spend an extra hour or maybe two hours on a train when it is totally un-necessary. As for New York - Maine via Providence, we did it for years and it was a very successful route for a long time. I think it will happen in time, whether it is via Providence or via Norwich who knows but either route would do the job.
Noel Weaver

I don't understand the need to pit one route against the other . Both could do with plenty of improvements and new services .
Perhaps its the railfans expectations that need to be updated to a new age .

David Benton wrote:I don't understand the need to pit one route against the other . Both could do with plenty of improvements and new services .
Perhaps its the railfans expectations that need to be updated to a new age .

The main problem, Mr Benton is resources. At this point, EVERYTHING is in competition for limited funds and equipment. Who wins? Who loses? Can we steal 1 coach from 8 trains to make two, new four car trains? This is the point we're arriving at. Now that we've robbed Peter to pay Paul, should we actually pay Paul or split it between Paul and Robin?

My fear is by the time everyone gets serious and order equipment, the interest and funding will have disappeared.

Yes I see that side of it , and the urgent need to invest more money needs to be impressed upon politicans and lawmakers .not arguing over the piddling amounts they've served up so far .

ryanch wrote:

The EGE wrote:Longstanding precedent is that the first user gets precedent - any waterway that was used before Amtrak cannot be blocked unless no traffic whatsoever remains, but anyone who wishes to use a previously unused waterway or create a new one (i.e, canal) must negotiate with the railroad.

Pleasure craft routinely wait at Canal St. in Chicago till Amtrak deems it an appropriate time to open. I hear them over my kayak's marine radio all the time. One guy waked me, and then sat glumly waiting at the bridge while I paddled by and gave him a piece of my mind over the radio for Amtrak to hear. They didn't raise the bridge for him till just after I got out at my destination dock. Despite the fact that no train passed in that time period!

So I don't think the precedent is cut and dried. For that matter, barge traffic also waits at Canal St. Maybe the problem in Connecticut is the bridges are so difficult and time-consuming to open that even if the boats are forced to wait, there's just no window for opening the bridges that doesn't delay a train.

They should've installed the world's largest vertical lift:
http://www.historicbridges.org/bridges/ ... is/sblift/

Not to take this too far off base, but the precedent actually does hold-- AFAIK the Chicago River wasn't navigable until it was deepened for the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal in 1900, long after the railroads arrived on the scene.

Ridgefielder wrote:

ryanch wrote:

The EGE wrote:Longstanding precedent is that the first user gets precedent - any waterway that was used before Amtrak cannot be blocked unless no traffic whatsoever remains, but anyone who wishes to use a previously unused waterway or create a new one (i.e, canal) must negotiate with the railroad.

Pleasure craft routinely wait at Canal St. in Chicago till Amtrak deems it an appropriate time to open. I hear them over my kayak's marine radio all the time. One guy waked me, and then sat glumly waiting at the bridge while I paddled by and gave him a piece of my mind over the radio for Amtrak to hear. They didn't raise the bridge for him till just after I got out at my destination dock. Despite the fact that no train passed in that time period!

So I don't think the precedent is cut and dried. For that matter, barge traffic also waits at Canal St. Maybe the problem in Connecticut is the bridges are so difficult and time-consuming to open that even if the boats are forced to wait, there's just no window for opening the bridges that doesn't delay a train.

They should've installed the world's largest vertical lift:
http://www.historicbridges.org/bridges/ ... is/sblift/

Not to take this too far off base, but the precedent actually does hold-- AFAIK the Chicago River wasn't navigable until it was deepened for the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal in 1900, long after the railroads arrived on the scene.

My vague recollection from a class many years ago is that the term navigable can be interpreted very broadly, depending on purpose or issue. For example, a stream that was regularly utilized in the 1700's by trappers traveling by canoe would be considered navigable. For some purposes, the test is "navigable or potentially navigable" which is even more broad. The Coast Guard as the regulatory agency with authority over bridges is empowered to make rules empowered to determine the schedules for movable bridge openings (and even replacement of fixed bridges, e.g., clearances, etc.) which can vary from on-demand (the norm) to except during certain hours (typically rush hours) to on 'x' hours, days or even months of notice. The exception as I recall is for US government vessels for which the bridge must be opened as soon as practicable. In the case of a new waterway, the cost of construction might have to be borne by the new user, but the openings of the bridge would be determined by the Coast Guard whose jurisdiction would attach concurrent with navigability of the waterway.

Ridgefielder wrote:Not to take this too far off base, but the precedent actually does hold-- AFAIK the Chicago River wasn't navigable until it was deepened for the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal in 1900, long after the railroads arrived on the scene.

The I & M Canal was completed in 1848, starting from Bridgeport, which is south of the Canal St. bridge. Per Wiki, it's peak year was 1882, and it was still in use till 1933, presumably the point at which boats small enough to run the canal were no longer economically viable, and all shipping had moved into the Sanitary and Ship Canal. The I & M point of origin was in an area known as Mud Lake, which had been the sluiceway/portage for fur traders.

Bottom line is that the Chicago River at Canal St. has been used for commerce continually since at least the height of the Cahokia civilization in the year 1050 AD, and probably longer. So no, the precedent does not hold, at least not everywhere.

Arlington wrote:

MattW wrote:Unless commercial traffic needs the bridges, Amtrak should take the USCG to court over the openings. I fail to see why pleasurecraft should take precedence over a transportation backbone.

Sadly, its about campaign contributions. Donors lean on federal representatives who lean on the Coast Guard. Same thing happens in our air-travel system where the many leisure users (The Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association) get to pay minimal fees and gum up the works because they're a rich source of political donations...

The aircraft analogy is a myth, largely created by the airline industry (Airline Transportation Association), which ran ads and had editorials in all the in-flight magazines a couple years ago when everyone was up in arms about delays on the tarmac. They were looking to point fingers at anyone else, and general aviation became one of their targets.

Leisure users of aircraft avoid large commercial airports at all costs, because they're expensive and congested. Whether general aviation pays its fair share is up for debate--you can find FAA data that says it pays roughly the same percentage in taxes as compared to usage (8.6%), but with a few different assumptions you can make a case that they pay too little, or too much. It's as cloudy as the Amtrak profitability debates.

Anyway, back to the topic, I agree that it's silly to give pleasure boats priority over the NEC. Hopefully the bridge projects will reduce the frequency of the conflicts to the point that a political "showdown" isn't necessary.

AndyEich wrote:Anyway, back to the topic, I agree that it's silly to give pleasure boats priority over the NEC. Hopefully the bridge projects will reduce the frequency of the conflicts to the point that a political "showdown" isn't necessary.

I would agree with you that mass transit, whichever has the most users, should have priority. But, that's not the law. A navigable river has, is, and will always be controlled by Maritime laws, not railroad laws. Imagine how river traffic and shipping industry on the Mississippi River would have been destroyed if railroads had been allowed to block it. It's up to the railroads and highways to bridge navigable rivers high enough to not block river traffic. Otherwise, that's what they would do. I can believe that's what many of you are suggesting.
If Amtrak needs the bridges to be closed more often to support ever more trains, they have a valid alternative, i.e., to build higher bridges.

electricron wrote:

AndyEich wrote:Anyway, back to the topic, I agree that it's silly to give pleasure boats priority over the NEC. Hopefully the bridge projects will reduce the frequency of the conflicts to the point that a political "showdown" isn't necessary.

I would agree with you that mass transit, whichever has the most users, should have priority. But, that's not the law. A navigable river has, is, and will always be controlled by Maritime laws, not railroad laws. Imagine how river traffic and shipping industry on the Mississippi River would have been destroyed if railroads had been allowed to block it. It's up to the railroads and highways to bridge navigable rivers high enough to not block river traffic. Otherwise, that's what they would do. I can believe that's what many of you are suggesting.
If Amtrak needs the bridges to be closed more often to support ever more trains, they have a valid alternative, i.e., to build higher bridges.

This isn't right. The case law goes back to Lincoln, who successfully litigated for a railroad crossing the Mississippi, despite the arguments of barge owners that the very existence of railroad bridges created an impediment to travel.:
http://www.archives.gov/publications/pr ... ridge.html

The bottom line is that Congress can regulate interstate commerce, and they do. A previous poster gave the right answer legally - they've vested most of that power in the hands of the Coast Guard, to a lesser degree the Army Corps of Engineers. What has happened in Connecticut is that the Coast Guard has listened to a particular faction, powerful, but not all powerful. There are other powerful factions, and if someone wanted to wield enough pressure, I'm sure a new accommodation could be reached limiting bridge lifts to certain scheduled times of day. This is not just a theory on my part. As I pointed out previously, there is in fact a different accommodation at the Canal St. Bridge in Chicago, where boats are held till an opportune moment. At the rate Amtrak is gaining riders, I'd expect something to change in Connecticut in the next decade. If someone on the boards is particularly exercised about it, they should get something organized. I sympathize, but never having traveled the NEC, it's not going to be my campaign.

There was germane discussion of Amtrak's current limit on the NEC versus the greater number of trains the New Haven Railroad ran on the same line, in this thread.

This has been a very interesting thread for me to read, since I live in Worcester. I'm certainly not qualified to comment on the state of Amtrak's equipment pool or whether the political appetite is there to give CSX (still more) protection money for expanded service. However, I lived in Boston for many years and enjoyed using the NEC as a competitive alternative to bus or air. Let me give you the marketing-side perspective of frequent business traveller who has moved out to Central MA. When I moved here, I never dreamed it would be such an awkward spot on the route map (hey, I'm only 50 miles from Boston, right?) that my train travel would essentially cease:

-- Today, metro Worcester has no reason to use Amtrak except for purely railfan purposes. To get service to NYP/points south, I either have to ride commuter rail 1:30 in the wrong direction to BOS (no one will ever do this), or drive ~1:00 in a slightly less wrong direction to PVD (railfans might do this). My service west is a joke, and anyway has no usable connections either north to VT/Montreal or south to NY/NJ/PA. Regardless, trying to get south via ALB would be insane even if the timekeeping and schedule wasn't terrible. As a result I think I have earned about 100 Amtrak miles in the last 5 years, for a trip to Portland when I was already in Boston for work.

-- An inland route train would get me quite a lot: I'd have a connection to NYP and points south, plus anything leaving to the west off the corridor in the afternoon. If it were timed right, it would also get me VT. This would essentially convert Worcester from a station on a nearly unusable long disatance train to a 'real' corridor stop with national connections. Even with one trip daily that is a huge improvement.

-- Service to Providence is sometimes kicked around out here as a long term commuter rail possibility. That would be nice, but I don't think it serves the purpose of a corridor connection due to it still being mostly in the wrong direction (and very expensive).

-- Service to the corridor via New London... huh? If we are talking cost/benefit, I can't imagine upgrading a long lonely P&W line through the middle of nowhere, CT, is more cost effective than paying CSX for some upgrades between WOR and SPG. But maybe I'm wrong about that? Doesn't seem to make sense at first read.

Now, maybe Amtrak is so hard up for equipment and the Commonwealth is so broke that the Inland Route can never happen again... but it seems like a cheap, effective way to get the ~500,000 people in metro Worcester 'back on the map' for Amtrak. And it could be done quickly. Service from here to RI or CT -- while it's nice that P&W seems to have a more cooperative reputation than CSX -- would be massively more expensive and take years or decades. Obviously I'm biased, but an inland route train seems like a low cost high reward move.

Other random comments on things mentioned on this thread:

-- A second BOS-ALB frequency is less important than in inland route train, but would still be sorely appreciated. Not necessarily because anyone wants to go to ALB, but because of the connections it would open up to Montreal and the vacation destinations in upstate NY and VT (Lake George, Killington, Saratoga, etc). For those who are always pointing out the B&A is slower than buses, I invite them to compare fares on 448/449 with intercity bus from, say, BOS to PIT and reconsider the appeal of Amtrak.

-- Our own Tim Murray keeps talking about commuter rail WOR - BON. No Massachusetts commuter I have ever talked to can understand what the heck he is smoking, to put it mildly. There are supposedly "people who would much rather arrive at BON than BOS", but I have never met one.

-- The fastest WOR-BOS express train today takes 1:28 to go the 45 miles. This is crappy. Even on the very worst pike traffic day possible, it is not going to take you much over 1:40. Supposedly, we are getting a couple faster express trains in the spring, if so, that could make the 'ride MBTA to BOS to get on Amtrak' a somewhat less bad option, but not much.

-- I fully support some kind of Three Rivers type service over the Inland Route, if only because the LSL might become less of a nightmare. Then at least I could use that.