Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the operations of MTA MetroNorth Railroad including west of Hudson operations and discussion of CtDOT sponsored rail operations such as Shore Line East and the Springfield to New Haven Hartford Line

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, nomis, FL9AC, Jeff Smith

 #1475480  by lordsigma12345
 
Amtrak just release its new timetables for the NEC. Unfortunately it appears as if the Shuttles that are advertised by CTDOT as connecting to Acela trains are actually either going to be standalone Shuttles with no Amtrak connection in New Haven or they will connect with a Regional train instead. While you can of course unofficially make the connection at your own risk, Amtrak is not going to offer it as an actual connection which means your screwed if the Shuttle is late and you miss the connection. Trains 451 and 412 on weekdays will be standalone connectionless Shuttles, train 417 will have an official connection with train 177 instead of 2175. Sunday northbound train 416 will connect with train 96 instead of train 2256. Looks like another great job of communications between CTDOT and Amtrak.
 #1475536  by GirlOnTheTrain
 
Traingeek3629 wrote:Also, what happened to 81 minutes between NH and Springfield? That first train is 95 minutes.
Schedule padding...same reason why Metro-North trains get like 20 minutes to go between West Haven and New Haven.
 #1475538  by Traingeek3629
 
Amtrak can make it without schedule padding? Why not making it something like 88 minutes? That still gives 7 minutes of make-up time, and they should keep in mind a train is not late until 5 minutes 59 seconds after the scheduled arrival time.
 #1475540  by Traingeek3629
 
lordsigma12345 wrote:Amtrak just release its new timetables for the NEC. Unfortunately it appears as if the Shuttles that are advertised by CTDOT as connecting to Acela trains are actually either going to be standalone Shuttles with no Amtrak connection in New Haven or they will connect with a Regional train instead. While you can of course unofficially make the connection at your own risk, Amtrak is not going to offer it as an actual connection which means your screwed if the Shuttle is late and you miss the connection. Trains 451 and 412 on weekdays will be standalone connectionless Shuttles, train 417 will have an official connection with train 177 instead of 2175. Sunday northbound train 416 will connect with train 96 instead of train 2256. Looks like another great job of communications between CTDOT and Amtrak.
Looking at the new NEC schedule there is no Shuttle advertised for 417 and 416. And once again, there is no AM peak Hartford Line train. (4401 now connects to 1541 rather than 1539, the last AM peak train.
 #1475559  by lordsigma12345
 
The 416 and 417 connections aren’t on the timetable but they are available as connections on Amtrak.com if you book a trip. Note that both have abnormally long layovers in new haven. Bizarrely it seems as if they timed these shuttles to meet the Acela but are not actually going to sell tickets for that connection. Makes no sense to me.
 #1475831  by lordsigma12345
 
lordsigma12345 wrote:Although that is true the "Amtrak fare" on the relevant trains will be the same as the CTrail fares. The Hartford Line website doesn't say that but it was announced on their social media site that Amtrak was lowering their rates. I bought a northbound Shuttle ticket for the second day of service (6/17) from an Amtrak station agent. The fare was the same as the CTrail rate and the station agent confirmed that the fares are the same as CTrail when the trip is contained within the SPG-NHV corridor. I believe you will also be able to redeem an Amtrak ticket on the CTrail trains, so in reality whatever way you buy (CTrail machine, QuikTrak machine, Amtrak agent, online through Amtrak) it is pretty much going to be interchangeable. The only thing that hasn't been confirmed is if the Amtrak tickets will be fully transferrable on the Amtrak side (For example if your ticket is for one Shuttle train and you board a different one.)
Just to clarify further, where there can be a difference is in cases where CTrail offers a discount Amtrak doesn't (or is better.) For example CTrail offers a child discount. In those cases it makes a difference when you buy from a CTrail machine. However for general adult tickets when no discounts are applicable, booking through Amtrak will be the same price.
 #1475932  by M1 9147
 
Hi guys,

I won’t be riding the free trains, but it’s preliminary that I will travel up via ferry from Long Island to do run by shots of the equipment in revenue service along with taking other shots along the Main Line in some areas.
 #1475944  by Traingeek3629
 
daybeers wrote:What's the deal with Berlin? @HartfordLine replied to my Tweet a while back saying both platforms will be operational, but that about 300 feet of the east side platform will be closed until the full opening of the station in the fall. Is this still true?
There have been almost no updates on Berlin at all. My guess is that they will finish a stub of each platform so trains can start stopping, but they will not finish the full length until fall.

On an unrelated note, what are the platform lengths? My guess for Wallingford is 4-6 cars.
 #1475972  by John_Perkowski
 
Jeff Smith is Travelling, he sent me this

http://wamc.org/post/commuter-trains-ru ... rting-2019" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1475993  by Lincoln78
 
“Our objective isn’t to deny everybody the use of a bathroom,” Knauff said Tuesday. “It’s just to make sure there is a substantially equal opportunity for people with disabilities to use a bathroom.” And what have you have achieved for the short term?
 #1476000  by checkthedoorlight
 
Traingeek3629 wrote:
daybeers wrote:What's the deal with Berlin? @HartfordLine replied to my Tweet a while back saying both platforms will be operational, but that about 300 feet of the east side platform will be closed until the full opening of the station in the fall. Is this still true?
There have been almost no updates on Berlin at all. My guess is that they will finish a stub of each platform so trains can start stopping, but they will not finish the full length until fall.
High-level platform on Track 1 is installed and in-service. This platform is 500ft in length, and has bridge plate boxes installed approximately 100ft north and south of both ends of the platform.

High-level platform on Track 2 is installed. 220 feet of northern section of this platform is in-service with a bridge plate box installed approximately 100ft south of the northern end of platform. The southern 280 feet of this platform is out-of-service and has been blocked off with barricades and signs for pedestrian traffic. Trains must be spotted accordingly.

Wallingford & Meriden are also 500 foot High-level on Tracks 1&2.
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