Hartford Line CtDOT New Haven-Springfield - NHHS (Before Launch of Service)

[Jeff Smith]

Looks like they're moving the tracks well north of 95, and underground. Looks like 84 will be buried too?

[Jeff Smith]

Vermonter discussed here: Amtrak Vermonter (Montreal Greenfield Boston CT River Line)

Pan Am Connecticut River line discussed here: Connecticut River Line (Pan Am)

Amtrak Springfield line operations and infrastructure improvements discussed here: Springfield Line in CT incl. possible Greenfield extension

[CVRA7]

[quote="Noel Weaver"]Here in Florida the stations on the Tri-Rail line that have Amtrak trains stopping at them and Amtrak agents on site can and do allow Amtrak passengers free and pretty much unrestricted parking while using Amtrak trains. The Amtrak agent gives the passenger a permit with an expiration date for their front dash to display. Amtrak has some choice parkiing spots at Fort Lauderdale reserved for this purpose. I don't see any reason they couldn't do this at Berlin and other stations on the Hartford Line as well and it would provide Amtrak passengers the same parking that they have been able to use for the past years. This works in Fort Lauderdale and could work in Connecticut as well. Last I knew Amtrak owns this property and they should have a say in it use as well.
Noel Weaver[/quote]
So far I haven't seen any indication of free parking space for Amtrak passengers at the mostly-completed Berlin parking lot, and I will assume the same for Meriden and Wallingford. Of course none of these stations are or will be staffed so Amtrak passengers won't be getting any parking slips. AFAIK Amtrak no longer has any say over parking at these locations - all CT D O T properties now. Amtrak had leased the old Berlin station building to CT D O T long term but it was demolished after a fire of "undetermined origin" severely damaged it and the last remnants of it have been removed and the State will use its site as additional parking.

[Ridgefielder]

Looks like they're moving the tracks well north of 95, and underground. Looks like 84 will be buried too?

Burying 84 is what sparked the whole exercise. The I-84 viaduct between Park and High Streets is obsolete, decaying, and needs to be replaced. Furthermore the elevated roadway cuts Asylum Hill off from Downtown and is considered to be a general blight. Since the railroad viaduct itself is also a poorly-maintained antique the idea is to replace everything at once-- railroad and highway-- with a new alignment in a trench/tunnel. It's not dissimilar to what was done in Providence in the early '80s.

[Lincoln78]

I must be late to the party. Just connected that CT is ramping up for increased NHHS rail service just as they are about need to shut down the approach to Hartford. I hope CT has noticed this and can manage a solution.

[ebtmikado]

It will be AT LEAST 4 years before any construction starts on the I-84 project.
As both that highway and railroad will be relocated. there should not be that much effect on train operation through Hartford,
although road traffic to and from the station may be affected.

Lee

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

Rail ROW relocation goes first before highway in the construction sequence. There won't be any disruption to service, just a cutover into the new trench and several years of putting up with a temporary headhouse (in any of the build scenarios) until the adjacent highway berth in the cut is finished and they can cap it off with permanent station facilities. Platform level MIGHT be complete right from the Day 1 cutover into the new ROW, leaving just the station building on top in a state of flux while construction tears up the neighborhood...depends on whether they front-load the finishing touches at platform level of the cut or shuffle the funding deck for multitasking's sake. They haven't drilled down to that level of construction sequencing detail yet, and will probably do that when these station concepts get narrowed down to a Final 2 or 3 Alternatives.

[BenH]

The New Haven Independent ran this story about CTrail Hartford Line Fare Hearing that was held in New Haven this week (hearings were also held in Hartford and Springfield).

"Next Stop: Springfield! 12 Times A Day"
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/inde ... ringfield/
By Thomas Breen / The New Haven Independent | November 14, 2017

Here are the links to the proposed CTrail Hartford Line schedules, that are linked within the story.

LINK TO PROPOSED WEEKDAY SCHEDULE (PDF)
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/arch ... d_Line.pdf

LINK TO PROPOSED WEEKEND SCHEDULE (PDF)
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/arch ... d_Line.pdf

I attended the Fare Hearing in Springfield yesterday. Of particular note was the announcement that CTrail and Amtrak are working on a joint ticketing program that would allow passengers to ride on most Amtrak trains (between New Haven and Springfield) with a CTrail ticket.

The proposed schedules will promote some discussion on this forum. Rather than just debate the schedules here I would suggest that anyone who is so inclined also provide their written comments to CTDOT as part of the formal Hearing Process.

To provide a comment on the proposed CTrail Hartford Line Fares and Service follow the instructions on this link http://www.ct.gov/dot/hartfordlinecomments

Note that the deadline for providing written comments to CTDOT is Monday November 27, 2017.

[Jeff Smith]

Thanks Ben!

First thing I noticed was that oh-dark-thirty train NB, and that the next one doesn't make Hartford until a few minutes after 8. I don't think that's really practical.

From another Hartford perspective, train 4462 gets into Hartford at 5:21, but ends there. That would be a very useful train to continue, but at least there's a Regional slightly later.

4414 supplements the two regionals nicely.

Southbound: the two regionals already handle the rush hour traffic nicely into NH. 4401 is a nice "I ran late train". And there's a nice rush hour train from Hartford to NH.

The big benefits are the gap fillers for the shuttles and regionals during the day in both directions.

[jdb]

How many train sets will they need to run the starter schedule and SLE ?

[lordsigma12345]

Looks like they are going to eliminate the stops at Berlin and Waterford for the Vermonter but no changes to the thru Regionals.

[lordsigma12345]

Noticed one other interesting thing - they show the Northbound 146 Regional as operating both Saturday and Sunday, but shouldn't that operate only Saturday like it does now? Each week they do two atypical trips to facilitate the extra thru trains to and from Washington on the weekends - they run the very late night 136 on Friday nights to get the second full Regional trainset to Springfield for Saturday's two departures, and they run the last late night northbound trip on Sunday nights as a Shuttle instead of a thru trip unlike every other night in the week (so that there is only one full NE Regional trainset in Springfield for Monday morning.) Perhaps a misprint?

[Larry]

I saw today going North through Windsor CT a Amtrak train with the work train engines hauling one New Haven car (SLE) and the another engine. I could not catch the whole thing due to traffic but does anyone know what this might have been for?

[njtmnrrbuff]

Looking at the new proposed schedules, I will say this first-certainly an improvement from the current schedule with only the Amtrak trains. On weekdays, I like how the schedule will cater to those who might live in the Springfield and Windsor area and might commute to Hartford and New Haven. I like the availability of options between NHV and HAR. What can be better is having some more Ctrail options north of HAR but that is still a little bit off. Once there is more double track north of HAR, then we can look forward to more Ctrail trains continuing north of HAR.

[lordsigma12345]

Thankfully with the talk of joint ticketing and having the Connectiut commuter rail passes working on the Amtrak trains also the limited amount of CTrail trains is less of an issue.