Lake Shore Limited - New Schedule

Looking up on Amtrak's website:

Eastbound:
Current schedule: 7pm CHI - 1:50pm NYP.
Schedule on Amtrak's website, starting in the last few days of April - 7:20pm CHI - 3:25pm NYP.

Westbound:
Current: 2:50p NYP - 9:20A CHI
Schedule on Amtrak's website, starting in the last few days of April -
2:50p NYP - 8:55A CHI

Current Lv Boston 1150
New Lv Boston 1145

Av Albany 450- Current
Lv Albany 605
Av Albany 445- New
Lv Albany 600

From Chicago

Av Albany 1050 AM- Current
Dp Albany 1210
Av Boston 520

Av Albany 1230 PM- New
Dp Albany 1pm
Av Boston 620 Pm

Evidently, I guess it was time for "Dad" to sit the 33 year old kid down and have the little "facts of life" lecture.

The EB Lake Shore schedule certainly appears indicative of that.

That screws things up bigtime. I have tickets for a trip this summer and I will miss the downeaster connection in Boston on my return trip because the new schedule has the train arriveing 30 minutes after the departure time of the Downeaster at the north station.

SO... in order to make my connection, I will have to take a train from Albany to NYC and then NYC to BOS. The ALB to NYC section costs more then I paid for the round trip from BOS to ALB!. and not to mention the cost of NYC to BOS! - the $20 refund for the LSL ticket, It will cost me over ninety dollars to take the NYC route.

So here is the big question, will Amtrak give me a discount because they screwed up my travel plans? I may just have to take the LSL and byte the bullet and take the T. I purchased my tickets in Feb, so I would have had no idea about this change.

The schedule hasn't changed:

Lv. NYP - Late
Ar. ALB - Not too bad
Ar. CHI - Late

Lv. CHI - Late
Ar. ALB - Really late
Ar. NYP - Rediculously late

But it seems that the Boston section has reverted back to the 1968 Penn Central era plug run of one engine and two cars.

-otto-

ggardei wrote:So here is the big question, will Amtrak give me a discount because they screwed up my travel plans? I may just have to take the LSL and byte the bullet and take the T. I purchased my tickets in Feb, so I would have had no idea about this change.

Why don't you call Amtrak and ask?

ggardei wrote: I will miss the downeaster connection in Boston on my return trip because the new schedule has the train arriveing 30 minutes after the departure time of the Downeaster at the north station.

Even if the schedule remained exactly as it is now, there's an excellent chance you'd miss your connection to the Downeaster anyway.

When the Lake Shore Limited and a "change of station" are involved, allowing yourself only an hour between trains just isn't enough.

The current Amtrak schedule for the Downeaster shows multiple departures from North Station until late at night!

It would seem that regardless of the schedule of the Boston section of the Lakeshore, you will surely be able to make a connection to the Downeaster...just not the one you had planned on!

Check it out: [http://www.amtrak.com/trains/timetable/w3.pdf]

It would seem that regardless of the schedule of the Boston section of the Lakeshore, you will surely be able to make a connection to the Downeaster...just not the one you had planned on!

I really do not want to take the 10pm train. My parents would be REAL happy picking me up at 11:00 in Haverhill.

Anyway, here is a email I sent to my pastor about the change. I might be taking two of his oldest kids with me to Albany, but not on the return trip.

It is a good thing I pay attention to the Amtrak forum on railroad.net because they [Amtrak] changed the schedule for the Lake Shore Limited. The departure time from Boston South Station on the Lake Shore Limited is five minutes earlier now, but that’s not a big deal so that shouldn't greatly effect the trip to Albany. BTW, it is still $11.50 for one way child fare to Albany from Haverhill.

HOWEVER, the changes greatly effects the return trip. They changed the departure time for the Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited to about an hour after the original departure time from Albany. The train is scheduled to arrive in Boston at 6:20, but the connecting train leaves Boston North Station at 6:15. SO... to make the connecting train, I needed to change my return trip (and being stubborn, I didn't want to take the T)

I will be going to New York, New York (dum dum dumde dum, dum dum, dumde dum...) and from New York to Boston. I will only be in New York for about a half an hour though so I won't be able to play tourist. Good news - more trains, Bad news, cost more money. The woman on the phone noted what I already figured out; The one way ticket from Albany to New York costs more then double my round trip on the Lake Shore Limited. It seams they are giving me a discount though because unless they messed up big time, I owe them only $56.00 instead of $76.00 (that’s $97.00 minus refund for one of the tickets)

I don't understand the complaint. Haverhill is only 34 rail miles from Boston North Station. It's not even the end of the trip; the correspondent still needs a ride from there. And Haverhill is also served by MBTA--which by happy circumstance costs less to ride than Amtrak.

(Notice once again that it takes repeated questioning to get the whole story.)

Don't expect anyone, even a pastor, to have much sympathy for this Amtrak-or-nothing mania. Can't ride the Downeaster for the last 34 miles of a 230-mile trip? Gotta ride an MBTA train instead? You. Poor. Dear.

I am inclined to mark down this rant as the whining of a so-called fan who's crossed the line from expecting to seeking a bad experience. As EastCleveland noted, the original itinerary was unrealistic to begin with.

mattfels

I know perfectly well that I can ride MBTA trains, but I perfer to take the Downeaster. The whole reason I am taking the train is for fun... and commuter rail trains just arn't very fun.

Also, I know it is likely that I could miss the downeaster connection with the old LSL schedule, but now there is no chance at all to make the connection. Last year when I took the LSL it was three hours late. I took the MBTA home that night.

ggardei wrote:The whole reason I am taking the train is for fun... and commuter rail trains just aren't very fun.

And missed connections are?

Let's review: Even without the timetable change, the correspondent had determined to make an itinerary with a change of station and no more than 55 mins (M-F) or 1h 15 min (wkd) dwell time. Setting oneself up for a missed connection is no reasonable person's idea of fun. What exactly, then, was the purpose?

i would say that you should take that 10:20? downeaster, its a nice ride and the conductors on that train are extremely nice, besides haverhill isnt that bad of a place i use it all the time for both CR and Downeaster.

ggardei wrote:The whole reason I am taking the train is for fun... and commuter rail trains just arn't very fun.

Commuter trains aren't fun? Au contraire.

Cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Chicago collectively have dozens of interesting commuter routes. Virtually all were built by now-extinct Class I railroads like the New York Central and the Pennsylvania. Most serve great little towns that are often many miles from the nearest Amtrak route. And many commuter trains travel substantial distances, taking up to 2 1/2 hours to reach their terminus.

As long as you can live with the highly unflattering fluorescent lighting (not to mention the occasional "Captain of Industry" shouting moronically into a cell phone), commuter railroads are a great way to scratch your rail travel itch.

Besides, if you take away the dining car and the sleepers, the Lake Shore Limited looks exactly like the Downeaster. So why the obsession?

Are we still talking about the LAKE SHORE LIMITED?


As long as we're talking about the Boston area, can someone describe the current situation with the Boston-Albany section?

-otto-