by benboston
nomis wrote:Well there could be different things at play here...They should try sending some more regionals on the inland route so it can go through Worcester, Springfield, and Harvard. The only problem is that it isn't electrified. Yet...
It's an interesting equipment rotation, which doesn't leave sets solely captive in Virginia service, like the way 65-66-67 is semi captive to SHSY, unless some tinkering happens with the WAS engine change. Springfield is ill equipped to handle a Regional or two's consists for more than the overnight turn and calendar inspection happening in Springfield (this is exaggerated with a platform track OOS for the HLP work happening there). Sending it out of town or continuing it on the B&A would be more ideal to keep the wheels moving and revenue flowing, but alas Virginia service
The Saturday addition of 2249 (and semi-counterpart 2290) are showing the growth of the staying over business crowd, and with 2251 departing roughly in the same slot that a 147 from BOS would look like (aka 171 M-F). You are moving your core service from BOS to NYP & WAS 45+ mins quicker on the AX than the Lynchburger. 147 still plays cleanup on the MN after the engine change from NHV all the way to WAS. Both 195 and 99 have healthy ridership on the weekends, and 2249 and 2251 help take the load off of the Regionals on the Shoreline portion.
Can the New England market truly bear two Regionals on the shoreline on a Sunday within 30 minutes of each other? The second of which departing NYP an hour later and making 2 additional stops. You also got 99 batting cleanup both days within 2 hours later. 99 is quite crowded BOS-NHV on a Sunday, but not to a sell-out point. Is it worth taking a well performing train and making it into two ok performing trains over that Segment.
From the times I rode this year: 94 and 194 feature anemic ridership east of NHV, so doubling down on another Virginan set to BOS at that time-frame wouldn't help bolster ridership on the Shoreline.