Improving Hartford-Springfield Service

Note, Connecticut is in fact funding some rail improvements: Stamford Advocate Article

And another:

Boston.Com

Its looking to get package signed, its not signed by long shot.

Greg Moore wrote:Note, Connecticut is in fact funding some rail improvements: Stamford Advocate Article

And another:

Boston.Com

The boston.com article mentions studying a New London-->Worcester service as well..

Does this make sense to anyone? What towns/cities would it pass throught?
Seems like mainly rural CT, across route 6 and across 84

I guess I am not sure I see a purpose this would serve

blink55184 wrote:The boston.com article mentions studying a New London-->Worcester service as well..

Does this make sense to anyone? What towns/cities would it pass throught?
Seems like mainly rural CT, across route 6 and across 84

I guess I am not sure I see a purpose this would serve

As a former Connecticut resident, I might cynically suggest that it's bit of pork thrown to eastern Connecticut to get legislators from that part of the state to support rail improvements in the places where large numbers of people actually live (sorry, Mr. Telesha).

Passenger service between New London and Worcester ended in 1971 with the startup of Amtrak. At that time it was a single RDC making two round trips a day, hardly a viable operation. Granted, there's been population growth everywhere since then, but only Norwich and Putnam are decent size midpoint towns along tha route. Someone will probably argue that casinos represent new potential business in the area, but you'd still need a bus connection from a rail station to get to Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun and that's already available from New London.

If it did happen, at least the Providence & Worcester RR (current owner of the line) is very passenger-friendly and and would undoubtedly welcome the business.

One thing, hopefully the new commuter stock ("M-8s"), if they are 25kv friendly, then some of those can go into service on SLE, or even act as "dual service" (MN and SLE), and freed "unplugged" equipment from THAT can be used for the new line.

~Ra'akone

The NJ Transit North Coast line MAS is 80 mph north of Long Branch and 60 mph from there to Bay Head. But a long area between Asbury Park and Bradley Beach is 40 mph because there is a crossing on almost every cross street. Meriden has a lot of closely spaced crossings too. A 40-mph speed restriction in Meriden would be almost imperceptible to riders on trains making the stop because they'd be slowing down or speeding up in that area anyway.

There's room for improvement on the NYC-Hartford travel time. The presently scheduled times between New Haven and Hartford are pretty decent. I remember when Amtrak almost took an hour to cover this segment, and they'd creep along 80 mph track just to avoid running ahead of schedule. What I'd like to see is for New York-Springfield travel time to rival the 2.5 hours it takes to go a similar distance from New York to Albany. That's not happening in our lifetimes.

But a bigger factor may well be the hassles of the all-reserved service and the presence of frequent, lower fare service in New Haven. Yet that shouldn't prevent a healthy ridership from originating in Hartford and Springfield. Several hundred commuters pay a premium for an Amtrak monthly ticket from Philadelphia to New York. They could save a ton of money and have many more train choices if they just took I-95 to Trenton or Hamilton.

All-reserved service on trains going through NYC is bad enough. It's pure absurdity to require reservations on the New Haven shuttle. Amtrak would never require reservations on the Keystone between Philly and New York.

Or took the SEPTA to Trenton, then NJT rest of the way. Apparently there are even "combined" tickets SEPTA/NJT to New York from Philly that are cheaper than Amtrak.

Back to Connecticut...the commuter service might be the best. And as I suggested before, if they can "electrify" Shoreline East service (most of the required catenary is already there, just storage facilities) and use some of the new M-8s (which are 25kv friendly).....then the SLE stuff can be transferred to the new service.

Any ideas for names for the new service?

~Ra'akone

Raakone wrote:Or took the SEPTA to Trenton, then NJT rest of the way. Apparently there are even "combined" tickets SEPTA/NJT to New York from Philly that are cheaper than Amtrak.

The so called "combined" ticket is actually two separate tickets, one for the NJT part and one for the SEPTA part. Fortunately NJT's TVM's are able to issue this pair of tickets. And yes that pair of tickets is considerably cheaper than the Amtrak ticket. between NYP and Philly.

I think the service is the best it's been in years. I used to transfer to the NEC off the LSL back in 2000 - 2002 and they charged $18 to go from Springfield to Hartford! Peter Pan / Greyhound used to charge less than $10 for the same trip.

Then there were rumblings of CDOT starting commuter service, and Amtrak all of a sudden increased frequency and dropped the ticket prices. Service improved and it was a lot cheaper!

I don't live in Hartford anymore, but my brother takes the train nearly every week to New Haven. He's not a railfan in the slightest.. he just doesn't drive. I don't think that through trains will increase ridership. Most people aren't even aware of the cross-platform transfer.

As far as driving to New Haven and taking metro north, sure you can do that. I've done that but prefered taking Amtrak the whole way. I felt that MN was slower and parking in New Haven offset the savings I'd have by driving instead of picking up Amtrak in Hartford. To each their own, I guess.

blink The P&W route follows 395 so towns like Norwich, Plainfield, Putnam, and Worchester would get service. I do not see how this really helps out the traffic because there is not that much on 395. If they ran a shuttle from New London to Norwich on NECR's tracks you will at least go by the Mohegan Sun and that makes at least some sense. You could also have bus service from Norwich to Foxwoods. The Old abandoned Norwich train station is used as a commuter lot for Foxwoods currently.

Nyterider wrote:Amtrak would never require reservations on the Keystone between Philly and New York.

Even the Keystones are all-reserved between Philly and New York, along with all the other NEC services.

Philly-Harrisburg is still unreserved; perhaps that's the line segment you meant to refer to?

As far as the potential of passenger service on the former NHRR Norwich
Branch is concerned, I think the question becomes would a daily or double
daily passenger train between Worcester and New York be a viable
operation. I do not know the answer to that but I do not think the
available passenger business in Putnam or Norwich or any other point
would sustain the trains at this point. If the powers to be were to decide
that a passenger train(s) would be viable between Worcester and New
York, this is by far the shortest and best route.
Probably a maximum of three intermediate stations between Worcester
and New London would warrant passenger service, I am thinking Norwich,
Putnam and maybe Webster.
I don't know just how well the Budd Car was doing the pre Amtrak days on the Norwich Branch but I rode it a few times and every time that I rode
it, it had a decent crowd and the overhead was somewhat low with a two
man crew and one Budd Car.
I kind of doubt if either Massachusetts or Connecticut would commit any
funds to start up or support such service so it is probably out of the
question anyway.
Noel Weaver