Amtrak's ADIRONDACK

25Hz wrote:Great catches!

Thanks.

I'm still a bit miffed that my autofocus screwed up at the wrong time, but that is nothing compared to the stupid thing I did next.

After #68 departed, the signal on the CP lit up Approach for a northbound freight. After about 5 minutes, it upgraded to Approach Medium. But when nothing had yet appeared 10 minutes later, my friends and I decided to leave, as we had a 5 and a half hour drive home ahead.

That was the First Fail.

Now, another 5 minutes have passed. We're all getting settled in my van getting set to go, reviewing some of the day's video footage, when we heard the roar of locomotives. A CP freight went rolling by.

That was the Second Fail.

The freight had three units. The lead two were a pair of CP widecab GE's (didn't try to see which model as we were all reacting to the fail of missing the train). But the third unit was a very particular GP38-2. Wearing a certain blue and grey paint scheme. Yep. Delaware & Hudson.

Epic Fail.

Would you say your epic failure was on this level:



or more on this level:




Thanks for the shots. I'm glad you had fun.

Matt Johnson wrote:

ROFLMAO!!! That sums it up!!

ThirdRail7 wrote:Would you say your epic failure was on this level:



or more on this level:




Thanks for the shots. I'm glad you had fun.

I'm a bit critical of myself, so it is more along the lines of the second photo, hehe!!

I had much better luck with the Sunday holiday rush on the Corridor at Perryville today!

A friend from the UK is visiting various friends in the NE in a couple of weeks. She's visiting us in Westchester Cty, NY from Vermont and is interested in taking the ferry from Burlington, VT to Port Kent, NY and then catching the daily southbound Adirondack from Port Kent at 12.58pm to Croton-Harmon, NY.

She has two options for the ferry - depart Burlington at 8.45am arriving Port Kent at 10.00am, which means a good three hour wait in a location that's not much more than an open shelter, or depart Burlington at 11.15am arriving Port Kent at 12.30pm. This means only a half-hour wait for the Amtrak, but more of risk of missing the connection if the ferry runs late. Myself and my wife did this route last year, although in the high season when there are more ferries on the route, and we found the ferry timekeeping a bit elastic although on neither leg was it as much as half an hour late.

Does anyone know how reliable is the connection? Should she take the earlier ferry to be sure of making the connection or would the later ferry be safe? What's the southbound Adirondack's timekeeping been like of late - how likely will it get her to Croton-Harmon around the advertised arrival time of 7.25pm?

Many thanks to all.

Roy

The SB Adirondack is subject to delay because of the border crossing at Rouses Point, NY. Time is built into the schedule but usually more is needed for the inspection. In addition, delays at the border can delay the train further down the line since it could "lose its slot" in favor of the host railroad's freights.

Best source for train delay information is this site: http://www.dixielandsoftware.net/Amtrak ... Status.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

For today (9/3), the SB was ~ 45 minutes late into Port Kent. The above link does not have a station code for Port Kent, but the station would be in between codes PLB and WSP.

Roy: I rode the Adirondack on the Port Kent - Burlington Crossing back in July. Its a great ride and the Port Kent Landing is walking distance from the AMTRAK Station. Two boats were in service then but now the autumn schedule is in effect and only one boat , the Champlain is in operation. The first sailing from Vermont is at 845AM and arrives at Port Kent at 10AM. The next sailing is not until 1115AM. Due to the long headways the ferry company tries not to leave anyone at the dock so if they see a car coming down the hill they will wait for a while which means that the boat may leave a little late.

There is also a second point and that is the water conditions on the Lake. When I was up there in July the lake was very close to flood stage and if the water had risen only about another six inches they would of had to suspend service. It would be best to contact the Lake Champlain Transportation Company directly and ask there advise. Since there is only one train a day on that route missing one means a twenty four hour wait for the next one.

An alternative would be to drive down to Larabee's Point and take the Fort Tic0nderoga Ferry over to the AMTRAK Station in Ticonderoga which also is walking distance from the ferry. It's a much shorter crossing but the "Ti" runs more often and the scenery is beautiful.

Good luck

Larry, RedbirdR33

I take a ride on the Burlington-Port Kent ferry every summer, and as Mr. Redbird notes the schedule can be somewhat flexible and boats tend to run later as the day goes on. I would not attempt a 30 minute train connection at Port Kent on the assumption that the boat will arrive on time. It's just a couple minutes walk from the dock to the station, but a delayed boat could cut that awfully close, and unfortunately there's nothing at Port Kent but scenery, a beach and a snack bar in the ferry waiting room. As of mid-August, lake water levels had receded to more normal levels, so that won't be an issue.

BTW, I realize that this is not Boat Net, but it's worth noting that the Lake Champlain Transportation Company's Adirondack celebrated its 100th birthday earlier this year, having been built as steam ferry in 1913 for service on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, FL, later converted to diesel and moved to Lake Champlain. When I was up there last month the captain told me that thanks to relatively new engines and light seasonal duty she should be around for many more years to come.

Thanks for the responses everyone - we did that route ourselves last summer and the ferry schedule then was such that there was a comfortable gap, over an hour I think, between the scheduled arrival of the last ferry before the train at PK and the train's departure. On that particular occasion the s/b Adirondack was pretty much on time but when we'd come down from Montreal to PK a couple of days before our train was quite late and didn't arrive at PK until just after a ferry was due to depart, with quite a wait for the next one. The Amtrak conductor called the ferry people and they held it for us, but I'm not expecting that to work in reverse!

Roy

On the Amtrak website front page, you can get the train status at each station for
the current day and five previous days. #68 showed as follows at Port Kent:

Friday, August 30th 1 hours, 2 minutes late
Saturday, August 31st, 1 hour 12 minutes late
Sunday, September 1st, 11 minutes late
Monday, September 2nd 1 hour, 4 minutes late
Tuesday, September 3rd, showed not available at Port Kent, but was 45 minutes late at Plattsburgh and 48 minutes late at Westport.
Wednesday, September 4th, 8 minutes late.

Seems like a feast or famine......

Well on the Adirondack as you cross the border into Canada you are moving off of a CP main line to a CN secondary track, which is, shall we say, not maintained to any exacting standard. The ride gets smoother once you get on the Montreal - St. Hyacinth CN Main Line.

I do remember when I took the adirondack from Penn Station to Montreal conductor said cp was doing some really important rail work from the us boarder to Whitehall but this was 3 years ago.
I'm sure if cp had an accident there they would maintain that track better
I guess its up to them being how there the host railroad that will sometimes run a freight train ahead of the northbound adirondack for a while

Hopefully the track north of Cantic gets a little bit of love if the Montrealer comes back. Adirondack alone hasn't been enough of a trigger to merit new investment into that line, but it'll be beneficiary of some improvements when it's carrying 2 routes. That would at least limit the crud rail to only the first 4 miles across the border.

CN's only traffic is to NECR and D&H, and therefore not a significant line for them.

D&H has gotten lots of new traffic. The maintenance has improved. It is better than it has ever been in my 13 years there.

After departing niagara falls (ny) headed towards niagara fals (on) the track did suddenly get very bumpy, however i didn't notice any discernible difference between rail on ground and rail on bridge. Not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing... Now that amtrak owns the bridge and the tracks leading up to it, perhaps that will improve?