by Rockingham Racer
On the Haverhill Line, one more train each way beyond Andover midday. The Andover turn is gone.
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octr202 wrote: 4. Evening service is a definate loss. "After-rush" service (and I somewhat dispute that the current 655 train to Haverhill via Woburn isn't a rush hour train...it might not be full, but it's well-used) goes from 4 Haverhills (655, 840, 1035, 1210) and 2 Readings (720 & 935), down to four Haverhills and no Readings (740, 920, 1110 & 1210). And why is there better headways during the very end of the night rather than the end of rush hour??It wouldn't surprise me at all if the 930-1045 departures from Boston are the lowest-patronage weekday trains on basically every line. I just don't see the demand at all from the suburbs. Commuters, even those who have drinks after work are long gone. The other demand peak would be entertainment events, most notably Garden/Fenway (between them, depending on concerts, it's about a 50/50 whether there's an event any given weeknight): for that there's no demand until after 1030 at the earliest, and it probably crests at 1100, with enough stragglers to support midnight. Thus we have at least two trains after 1040 to every station on the north side except Mishawum, Hastings, and Silver Hill.
Diverging Route wrote:Picking up on OCTR202's point on 206/208 that currently make WIlmington (206/208) and Anderson/Woburn (206) inbound....Wilmington sees a net increase of 1 morning train. Anderson sees either a +1 or no change (depending on whether current 312 is considered morning or not).
On the new schedule, those two trains express through Wilmington and Anderson. So the pax those trains used to pick up (about 200?) now have to be distributed onto the Lowell trains. Rumor is that all sets will be five cars (four flats and a Rotem).
Grab the popcorn for December 14.
NH2060 wrote:I must say the new Newburyport/Rockport schedule is truely an improvement over prior timetables. There will now be 33 inbound and 32 outbound trains each weekday that stop in both Salem and Beverly with no odd station stop patterns. Plus that BON-Rockport reverse commute non-stop express RT that gets you from point A to B in under an hour!That non stop train skips Gloucester which now has a large gap in evening inbound service. There is NO train that will get you in for an event at the Garden off the Gloucester Branch. How is this an improvement? Trains that do not serve any ridership is pointless(there is NO reverse commute from Rockport Station itself).
NH2060 wrote: the semi-express runs into and out of Salem/Beverly appear to have a few minutes here and there shaved off. Quite a difference from a couple of years back when it took even those trains a grand total of 35-40 minutes to get from BON to Beverly Depot. You might as well have taken one of the "local" trains IMO.Anyone that commuters normal hours currently to Riverworks off the Eastern Route now has lost their rides. And this shows they only care about people commuting to and from Boston. Intermediate ridership is now hard to do, especially anywhere between Chelsea and Swampscott!
leviramsey wrote:And, now we get to exactly the point I'm trying to make. These changes (the hour plus outbound gaps in the evening, no mid-evening service, stacking late evening service for the Garden, the HUGE mid-morning inbound gap on the Eastern*) all smack of stripping service down to fit the 8/9-4/5 crowd and Garden patrons. Anyone else? Drive. That's the message. I'd love to know if the old schedules were really that horribly unworkable, or if they could have been fixed with tweaks here and there, versus making such a mess of this.octr202 wrote: 4. Evening service is a definate loss. "After-rush" service (and I somewhat dispute that the current 655 train to Haverhill via Woburn isn't a rush hour train...it might not be full, but it's well-used) goes from 4 Haverhills (655, 840, 1035, 1210) and 2 Readings (720 & 935), down to four Haverhills and no Readings (740, 920, 1110 & 1210). And why is there better headways during the very end of the night rather than the end of rush hour??It wouldn't surprise me at all if the 930-1045 departures from Boston are the lowest-patronage weekday trains on basically every line. I just don't see the demand at all from the suburbs. Commuters, even those who have drinks after work are long gone. The other demand peak would be entertainment events, most notably Garden/Fenway (between them, depending on concerts, it's about a 50/50 whether there's an event any given weeknight): for that there's no demand until after 1030 at the earliest, and it probably crests at 1100, with enough stragglers to support midnight. Thus we have at least two trains after 1040 to every station on the north side except Mishawum, Hastings, and Silver Hill.
The new schedule places an emphasis on preventing systemwide failure: delays on one line aren't spreading to others, and this seems to have two effects. Line-to-line turns are largely eliminated and they've put in extra padding for single-track sections. The first effectively turns the lines into shuttles for the most part and combines with the second to amount to a service cut on lines with lots of single-track. I suspect that as double-tracking is completed, Haverhill will see service improvements (even if the increases don't flow to Ballardvale/Andover). I would be a little worried if I'm riding Old Colony or Needham.
octr202 wrote: And, now we get to exactly the point I'm trying to make. These changes (the hour plus outbound gaps in the evening, no mid-evening service, stacking late evening service for the Garden, the HUGE mid-morning inbound gap on the Eastern*) all smack of stripping service down to fit the 8/9-4/5 crowd and Garden patrons. Anyone else? Drive. That's the message. I'd love to know if the old schedules were really that horribly unworkable, or if they could have been fixed with tweaks here and there, versus making such a mess of this.Where is the demand for commuter rail? For the people who aren't in the 8-5 crowd and Fenway/Garden patrons, the train isn't going to be competitive with driving barring some combination of billions in upgrades (e.g. to get every line to 128 (or Salem for the Eastern Route) in 15 minutes, 495 in 35, and Worcester/Fitchburg/Providence in 50), or instituting a major fare restructuring (e.g. 20% increase in peak fares and halving off-peak fares). Meanwhile those two constituencies are or in the case of the Fenway/Garden patrons, could very easily be, filling trains. Optimizing for that clientele at least until enough other changes can be made is absolutely the right thing to do.