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  • AMTRAK NEC: Springfield Shuttle/Regional/Valley Flyer/Inland Routing

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1520333  by Safetee
 
it's all well and good that railfans are attempting to help Amtrak get its schedules act together. in my jaundiced mind, the people who are trying to launch this thing and make it work and are putting up all the do re mi to make it happen, these are the folks ( ie Mass DOT) who should be breathing down Amtraks neck and saying " Is this how Amtrak partners with us to help launch this new service??"
 #1520335  by CVRA7
 
I certainly agree with Safetee that Mass. DoT should be quite concerned. I have seen errors in Amtrak timetables through the years but this - far and away - is the most blatantly inept. "Sweeny" is probably the location where the train reverses direction to access the Springfield station as I know there is a "Sweeney Building" there, IIRC named for a produce business which was a railroad freight customer at the location prior to Amtrak. "Riverside St." looks like the Willimansett area between Holyoke and Chicopee, MA judging by the time. No stop there for many decades.
I never thought I would say this but I'm glad that Amtrak no longer prints paper timetables if this is an example of what to expect. Let's see who quickly this is corrected on the Amtrak website's schedule area.
 #1520336  by CVRA7
 
Forgot to add that I am very pleased to see the term "Shuttle" dropped. From my own experience as the station agent at Berlin there were several times when people missed their train as they were looking for a "Shuttle" in the parking lot in the form of a bus or van. And those were only the instances that I was aware of.
 #1520381  by lordsigma12345
 
CVRA7 wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 9:01 am I certainly agree with Safetee that Mass. DoT should be quite concerned. I have seen errors in Amtrak timetables through the years but this - far and away - is the most blatantly inept. "Sweeny" is probably the location where the train reverses direction to access the Springfield station as I know there is a "Sweeney Building" there, IIRC named for a produce business which was a railroad freight customer at the location prior to Amtrak. "Riverside St." looks like the Willimansett area between Holyoke and Chicopee, MA judging by the time. No stop there for many decades.
I never thought I would say this but I'm glad that Amtrak no longer prints paper timetables if this is an example of what to expect. Let's see who quickly this is corrected on the Amtrak website's schedule area.
I don’t know the origin of the Sweeney name (it’s probably what you described) more recently the building was used as a mail loading facility back when Amtrak used to haul mail on their trains. After Amtrak discontinued hauling mail, the Sweeney building and area is now used by the track gangs. The interlocking there where the Springfield line main line tracks connect to the CSX diamond and the CT river line is also known as Sweeney.
 #1520399  by CVRA7
 
I should have indicated the mail facility, which included road-railer! I used to work there on overtime once in a while.
To Amtrak's credit, it appears they have yanked the Sep 23 N E Corridor timetable from their "printable schedules" offering in the Amtrak.com web site. Hope the revised version will somehow incorporate the "Valley Flyer" services into the schedule - and add them to the Vermonter schedule timetable as well - you might swing some southern Vermont passengers to Greenfield.
 #1520440  by Station Aficionado
 
This was an embarrassing mistake, and needs to be corrected. But let’s be real. Other than quirky, timetable-obsessed railfans (I include myself in that group), how many paying passengers were going to go to the pdf of a “printed” timetable for the NEC, and scroll down to p. 9 to find the Valley Flyer? I’m going to guess that somewhere around 99% of paying customers would just enter Greenfield into the departure station box on the Amtrak homepage and go from there. To my knowledge, Sweeney and Riverside don’t pop up in Amtrak’s booking tool. Who here, by comparison, searches out a pdf timetable when booking an airline flight?
 #1520444  by Backshophoss
 
The MassDOT schedule is part of the "Trains in the Valley site" and not seperate except by screenshot.
Had already downloaded the Amtrak .pdf with the "mistake" on pg 9!
Will try again shortly, after the "mistake" is fixed .

Lets see what happens when the "Thanksgiving TT" is released fairly soon.
 #1520620  by shadyjay
 
Well, would you look at that....

https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... 092319.pdf

The separate box on Page 9 for Greenfield service is gone, replaced with Greenfield,Northampton, and Holyoke integrated directly into the main tables of the schedule.

Good for you, Amtrak, for changing this so quickly!!!

Also interesting to note ACELA has replaced ACELA EXPRESS in the TRAIN NAME section.
 #1520647  by andrewjw
 
gregorygrice wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:31 am
shadyjay wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:24 am Also interesting to note ACELA has replaced ACELA EXPRESS in the TRAIN NAME section.
Acela Express is now reserved for the non-stop service between WAS and NYP.
I believe that is called "Acela Nonstop", but the new NY-DC schedule isn't up yet to show this.
 #1520648  by Safetee
 
well i'm glad to see that the names have been changed to protect the innocent. And maybe the rail fans of america not to mention the amtrak regulars will easily decipher the valley flyer piece of the "new" northeast corridor schedules. but i question whether or not the non railers are going to easily figure the flyer schedules out.

they say 5% of something is always better than a 100% of nothing, but i still see it as a continuing informational hindrance to getting riders in western mass to hop on the trains.
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