Railroad Forums
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NH2060 wrote:At one time the branch had 2 tracks in spots. Re-installing those segments of double track could be a possibility at some point in the future if service levels warrant it, but other than the PTC mandate nothing else will come to fruition in the short term. And yes the busses are inadequate compared to the train (and are an ironic choice of substitute transport for when the far superior one has problems), but when things go wrong they're the only other option. A more realistic approach would be to arrange to have a rescue engine stationed in Bridgeport and even that would require funding for a standby crew, etc.Up until January, 1950 the Naugy was two tracks all the way from Devon to Waterbury. Until the late 30's double track also existed between Waterbury and Hartford. Waterbury - Ansonia was Rule 318 which was manual block with the current of traffic and Ansonia to Devon was automatic block again with the current of traffic. Waterbury - Hartford was also double track, automatic block with the current of traffic. There were two interlocking towers in Waterbury as well, SS-202 at Bank Street Junction which lasted until the 1955 floods when it was so badly damaged that the railroad chose not to make repairs and SS-204 at Highland Junction which lasted until the late 30's and controlled the east end of the yard and main line crossovers between the two main tracks east to Hartford, the Winsted Main and the Watertown Branch. Both of them were at least most of the time 24/7 operations as well. Waterbury was a very busy terminal at least well through the 50's.
7express wrote:Double tracking AND electrifying Danbury should be about 500 million times more important then double tracking Waterbury.I want my passing sidings on Waterbury first
Backshophoss wrote:Sooner or later,the Waterbury Branch will "rise" from the dark ages,get signals,ACES and CTC like the Danbury Branch.Don't forget all the non-ADA intermediate stations. Light use or not, that can't last forever and they have to make an honest effort at flipping those over to compliance. It'll happen...one thing at a time. Signal system design's already funded for the first $60M, and they're doing long overdue bridge rehab.
The PTC mandate is forcing the up grade.
NH2060 wrote:Bear in mind that the branch runs through one of the more densely populated parts of CT outside of the Stamford-Norwalk-Bridgeport-New Haven, Waterbury-Bristol-New Britain-Hartford, and New Haven-Meriden-Hartford corridors and is one part of the state that is seeing consistent population growth due to the affordability of housing in that area; correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. Plus as I've heard from a number of posters and friends (as well as a former high school teacher) who live in the area Route 8 at rush hour is a must to avoid so there's obviously big enough a market for more service. It sounds more like an equipment availability problem than lack of need for more frequencies. An extension(s) to either Torrington or Bristol/Plainville/New Britain (or however far they can get before running into the pesky busway) sounds more like a pipe dream than getting the line properly equipped to handle more traffic.. and yet that's exactly what will happen thanks to the PTC mandate, as Backshophoss stated, so who knows what the branch will be in 10-15-20 years.Yes. As a Bristol native/ex-pat I can concur. The housing market in that area weathered the crash pretty well because of 1) consistent affordability, 2) growth in local office space, and 3) the fact that things bottomed out so badly and completely in the 90's that there was nowhere to go but up and that upward trend off-the-mat had momentum to blunt the effects of the recession. I'm more familiar with Bristol/Plainville/Southington/Plymouth than others, but the mind-bogglingly explosive growth of ESPN is very "housing-hungry" and has kept the growth of new subdivisions in those towns more or less constant over the last dozen years, with the big-box sprawl making 84 that much worse. Even sleepy Plymouth has had large tracts of former farmland rezoned into housing developments. Yes, downtown Bristol, New Britain, and Waterbury are still major and very conspicuous dead spots...but that's because they fell so much harder 20 years ago and have a decades longer fight to get any sort of recovery going. It's not indicative of how the outskirts are growing.
On another note, when the Waterbury-Stamford through train was added to the timetable (innnn...was it 2007?) IIRC there were plans to add a PM peak return trip if ridership levels on the new AM peak train warranted it. If this was true anyone know why that never came to fruition?
