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

^ great news on the extra car. Is ridership really much above expectations or was there some other factor at work? (Or at work making Amtrak staff think the shuttles would be short of seats at particular times and places?)

I think it has more to do with the schedule. Some of the prime commuting train times for CTrail riders are Amtrak operated and also are times that see a fair amount of regular Amtrak riders.

As far as expectations according to CTDOT they have exceeded end of year 1 expectations.

Happen to know what kind of numbers were forecast (daily on/offs? weekly?) and what the corresponding actuals are? (so we can see the math and/or % exceed(ed))?

Sadly we have to take CTDOT's word on that. They have not offered any recent numbers. I think the last thing they offered was that they had 49,300 in July the first full month of operation and that that was greater than projections. I think the main stat they care about is average weekday ridership. As of early September that was at 1,860 rides and the goal for end of year was 1,945 and 2,223 by the end of June 2020. In one of the recent articles that talked about the overcrowding they have now stated they are beyond that end of year 1 average but did not say what that number is.

Construction schedule on Springfield Line ends 11/12 (Veterans Day) - Amtrak trains resume pre-September schedule. Would assume CTrail is the same.

lordsigma12345 wrote:Construction schedule on Springfield Line ends 11/12 (Veterans Day) - CTrail and Amtrak trains resume pre-September schedule.

How do you know it's going back to the same schedule as before?

To correct and clarify (and I edited my original post) - the Amtrak times are going back to where they were and I know that for sure. CTrail is an assumption. I would assume CTrail would follow suit so as to restore a couple MetroNorth connections that become unavailable as a result of the shift.

57 hit a tree just after departure from SAB today. As a result both 57 and 54 will have bus-stitution north of Springfield. Train 54 will wye at Springfield and return to DC as 57 once the southbound buses arrive. Northbound passengers from 54 will then board the buses for their journey north. The buses will not make the Randolph, Windsor Vermont, and Claremont New Hampshire stops.

Picture of the three car Shuttle set at Springfield. In addition you can see the platform C construction site.

A few weeks from now when Thanksgiving Week is here, it will be interesting to see how the ridership is on both Amtrak and Ctrail trains. I’m sure those Amtrak shuttles will be standing room only.

For a number of years Amtrak's mandatory reservation policy eliminated most standees on the Springfield Line, even without adding any cars to the shuttle sets.
This year will be interesting due to the acceptance of unreserved tickets and I'm glad I'm no longer in the passenger service department!

Interesting trip on 432 last night. Scheduled departure from NHV was 9:25, but we didn't leave until about 9:54 because the yard took forever just to hook two Shuttle consists together. Was this due to 57 hitting a tree after departure from SAB?

The waiting wasn't that bad, but NER #132 arrived 5 minutes early, so we ended up waiting about 40-45 minutes in 40 degree weather on the platform with no reason given for the delay. I was listening to my scanner while the yard put the consist together.

It’s possible they may have robbed peter to pay Paul. Due to The problem on the 57 Vermonter they sent a second diesel on 54 to Springfield (54 then turned as 57.) the P42 then went non-revenue up to Vermont last night to run on today’s southbound train. I did see that 140 and 57s engine changes took forever last night and they stated “station congestion at New Haven.” Might have been a couple things going on.

I took a ride on 460 and 6455 on Sunday. I noticed that the CTrail trains now run with 3 cars instead of two. On the topic of crowding, 6455 had only two cars open and was about 2/3 full. Clearly crowding isn't much of an issue there. On the other train going up there, we were almost completely full out of New Haven. Keep in mind, I was riding at 11 AM on a Sunday. If the train is like this on a Sunday morning, I can't imagine what it is like in rush hour on trains such as 476, 475, and 495.

Have there been any recent announcements on the extension to Greenfield or the Springfield-Boston service?