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Buses offer competitive service at very very little taxpayer cost. How would the public ever earn its money back by spending 300M to 1BILLION on a service that was merely "competitive"? Buses use existing highways. If there's a traffic jam, they sit, same as a car. The money for the train...

Downtown Hartford has:

• Yard Goats, #1 rated MiLB stadium

• Wadsworth Atheneum

• Hartford Stage

• Bushnell Theater (two concert halls)

• Convention Center

• Mark Twain House

• Connecticut Science Center

• Many fine restaurants

We all agree that the solution is to put up slide fences and remove the slow orders. What would this cost, and why isn't Amtrak asking Vermont locate the funding?

Wouldn’t it make sense to address the risks that have recently caused accidents or incidents in Vermont? Those would be rockfalls and crossing collisions. Couldn’t these risks be mitigated with smaller investments than PTC? Shouldn’t we make the most cost effective safety improvements first?

Hartford-Springfield has plenty of trains too, but none of them go to Boston. Worcester has the same issue with getting to New York. The lack of this train hinders economic development in all three cities. As a business traveler I’m not very fond of MBTA or MTA trains for longer segments like New Ha...

For both the Shoreline and Inland Routes, the north-south leg is a raceway, and the east-west leg is curvy. Even if the Inland Route is 4 miles longer and 15 minutes slower, it’s hugely important to people in Hartford, Springfield and Worcester who currently lack service to Boston. Worcester has no ...

The Shoreline is capacity constrained because of the swing bridges that open for marine traffic. Moreover, from Westerly to New Haven it’s all curves. From New Haven to Springfield it’s flat with hardly any curves. Even today trains go 79mph, and faster is possible. Springfield to Palmer is mostly s...

The inland route is destined to return. It’s only 4 miles longer than the shoreline route, has more potential for high speeds and has no swing bridges. Worcester is bigger than Providence and Hartford is much larger than Old Saybrook plus New London. There are more customers on the inland route, and...

I like communal dining. It’s like a Hibachi restaurant except the waiters don’t shoot Sake in your face or juggle knives.

Southbound is the real trick. If there are 300 people on a train, how long do you wait for a Shuttle carrying 50? The answer is at least 15 minutes but not a full hour. You are right the decision may depend upon how long it is until the next train. Guaranteed connection only means Amtrak will reacco...

I’m writing this to help anybody in the future who wonders what happens when a Shuttle train like 495 is late. Will Northeast Regional 95 wait in New Haven? Yes, to a point. Today 495 is 20 minutes late. Connection time is only scheduled to be 8 minutes. However, 95 is waiting. Thanks, Amtrak.

How hard would it be for Amtrak to setup a GPS based warning system for speed restrictions? The Engineer and conductor carries the tablet or whatever with the system on it for the route , so no need to equip the actual trains. It's pretty easy to make an app that sort of works most of the time. To ...

Hard to believe that Wikipedia is already updated: The Series VI trainset built to operate between Las Vegas and Los Angeles was renamed the Mount Adams when it was purchased by the state of Washington. This trainset was subsequently destroyed in the December 18, 2017, derailment on the Point Defia...

Hartford’s relatively new high level platform has a retractable edge for allowing freight trains through. I just road the Vermonter last week. The platform really speeds the unloading and loading. No more schlepping bags up steps.

I once missed a train in Berlin by 30 seconds. Driving, I was not able to catch the train, until I found it stopped in New Haven. I made my connection in New Haven, barely. This train is not slow between New Haven and Springfield, unless there’re construction induced delays. There is a mountain rang...