DNC effect on the Downeaster

Here is some info on how the Downeaster might be effected by the DNC at the Fleet Center

From the Boston Herald 4-3-04

Amtrak said yesterday its Downeaster rail service, which carries 275,000 passengers a year between Portland, Maine, and Boston will be impacted during its busiest time of year because of the North Station closure, said Patricia Douglas, spokeswoman for Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority.


She said the service will likely be forced to end in Woburn, although they would like to get permission to terminate in Malden so passengers could transfer to the Orange Line subway.

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegio ... cleid=3204

Jack

It would certainly help Amtrak passengers a little if the "Downeasters" could be rerouted down the former B&M Western Route that's used by Haverhill commuter trains via Reading, so as to reach the Malden rail/transit station for a quick connection to the Orange Line... BUT there's also a possibility that Orange Line service may be suspended along the segment where it passes by North Station, so riders may have to change a second time to get into Boston.

The transportation disruption caused by the Democratic convention is going to be an utter mess for tens of thousands of commuters, as is being discused on another thread. My advice to out-of-town tourists is to simply pick another time to visit the city.

The DNC should take a tip and move their convention out of the Fleet Center, especially in the light of the RNC possibly shutting down NYP, eh...?

It would be nice if they would do that, but they think that moving the convention would "harm" the convention. In other words, they want their little show to go on irregardless of the impact on the locals.

If it was possible(and time allowing) the Downeaster could have been rerouted to South Station.

And stopping at Malden is pointless as the passengers only go two stops before they have to get off the trains and transfer to buses to get to Boston since the Orange Line is going to be closed south of Sullivan Square.

What exactly is the reason for shutting rail traffic down . are they worried somebody will pack enough explosives int a train to do damage to the station above . surely that would require a huge amount , that would be noticable .
Or is it to restrict access to the station ???

I thought that the Orange Line would still run past Sullivan Square, just that it wouldn't stop at North Station...it would continue to Haymarket.

Regarding the closure, I think the issue is just that keeping N. Station open would allow several thousand more people into the security permimeter around the convention.

Anyway, all a convention really is is a bunch of hard-line party crazies getting together, saying "Bush/Kerry, I hereby knight thee presidential candidate, now let's talk about how great our party is." Is it really that important to shut down the Downeaster for?

XRails wrote:Anyway, all a convention really is is a bunch of hard-line party crazies getting together, saying "Bush/Kerry, I hereby knight thee presidential candidate, now let's talk about how great our party is." Is it really that important to shut down the Downeaster for?

A few years in the hotel business (and on the other side as an attendee of a few conventions) showed me that most conventions, political or otherwise, are fairly unnecessary. However, it's all about the $$$. Some commuters and train riders may be a little inconvenienced for a few days, but that's not a big deal in the "big picture". The money it will bring, lots of which ends up in the hands of the "little people", will far outweigh the aggravation. If all goes well, that aggravation will be forgotten within a few weeks.

Of course, with any mega-convention, you run the risk of something bad happening. Having been here in Seattle for WTO, I can tell you firsthand how ugly it can get. BUT, for every WTO, there are literally millions of conventions that bring billions into local economies. And even the WTO, for all it's high-profile drama, really didn't affect that many Seattlelites directly. (I was one of the exceptions, having had the experience of being gassed in the convienience of my own apartment

Besides, it's part of life in the "big city". If you don't want that, move to someplace like Omaha.

A "brief passage" from Today's New York Times:

"BOSTON, May 21 — Senator John Kerry is considering delaying his acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination until five weeks after the party's July convention so he may continue spending the tens of millions of dollars he has raised for the primary season, his aides said Friday.

If he goes through with the idea, Mr. Kerry would still give a culminating speech amid the traditional pomp and circumstance of his party's convention here in late July. But he would formally accept his nomination at about the time President Bush does at the Republican convention in New York in early September, aides said......"

OK that does it; that is the last nail in the coffin for these anacronisms known as political conventions. Nothing of any consequence (like the nomination) has been decided at one since the GOP 1952.

Let's just give each of 'em say 12hours of free air time on each network that feels obliged to provide convention coverage, to do with as they please and otherwise "move on".

I, for one, will be "all eyes and ears" for the debates, but the Conventions? Hopefully some movie channels will have something worthwhile to watch. When the Dems were here during 1996, for all I knew or cared they were on another planet. The venue used , United Center (guess what? they went bankrupt but still held on to those naming rights), is sort of away from downtown in an "emerging" neighborhood and as such had no effect on any mass transit facility.

Sorry, If I've "gored your ox", Mr. Drumcorps (you're welcome to propose a Federal level "Sales Tax" to replace the Income Tax to gore mine), but with the security concerns and the disruptions that will be caused to "everyday folk just trying to live their everyday lives", "pro bono publico" ought to prevail.

And guess what? The last time I checked "us everyday folk" get to do same as the Gulfstream crowd on November 2nd.

You can be sure that no proposal of a national sales tax will be coming from this direction Mr. Norman

I never said conventions were necessary - quite to the contrary, most of them are deadly dull - but try to pull a major one from a big city, and you will have the local Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitor Bureau battering down your door and looking to put your head on a pike. (In this case, The network affected would also be most displeased with you.)

Shocklingly enough, Chambers of Commerce and Convention Bureaus don't care about the disruption to the "everyday folks" as long as there is money and publicty (but mostly money, which these things provide generously) coming to the old hometown. So, like many other things that we don't really need anymore, the political conventions will be with us for the forseeable future.

It should be noted that that apart from the nominination specatacle, the delegates and other iterested parties spend the week hammering out details of the party platform, etc - most of which no one will reference during the election, but it's very important to these folks. Of course, none of that is "good television" and could be hammered out at a Ramada Inn out by the airport without any disruption to anyone.

Some folks are going to wring their hands over this and declare loudly that they won't vote for candidate x or y because of how he screwed up Boston or New York, but those are the same blowhards who have no intention of voting for x or y, or never vote anyway. In the end, what you will probably see is a lot of people getting a day or two off with pay because their company will decide it's not worth the hassle of trying to get people in the office on those days. The rest of the people who have to report for work on those days will do so, and the whole thing will blow over.

As for the Kerry money thing, my solution is simple: Change the rule on money so that the ban on "private money" (or whatever it is) takes effect upon acceptance of the nomination by whoever has their convention last. Of course we'll probably then see conventions scheduled for the last week in October, but at least it throws it back in the hands of the parties, and levels the playing field.

While "we the people" often perceive the Wall Street Journal's constituency does not include "all that many everyday folks living their everyday lives", they too have their thoughts on the value of political conventions as expressed in the "brief passage" from an editorial appearing today:

"Thank you, John Kerry. The news that the Massachusetts Senator may delay accepting the Presidential nomination until several weeks beyond the Democratic Party's late-July Boston convention exposes two truths that the political class hates to admit.

The first is that the party conventions are now little more than free advertising vehicles. They long ago lost all political drama, but this year one of them may not even nominate a candidate. The next step would be for the media finally to agree not to cover them, though we probably won't because these week-long affairs have also become the equivalent of cardiologist conventions for the political press. We get to see old friends and eat well on expense accounts."

Incidentally, the second truth relates to the ineffectiveness of any campaign contribution reform legislation:

XRails wrote:Anyway, all a convention really is is a bunch of hard-line party crazies getting together, saying "Bush/Kerry, I hereby knight thee presidential candidate, now let's talk about how great our party is." Is it really that important to shut down the Downeaster for?

And is it really that important to shut down Penn Station for (in the case of the RNC)?

It would have be better for the DNC to be at Hynes Convention Center instead of FleetCenter as there would be no main arteries or North Station to shut down.

Umm... I think we're drifting off-topic here.

Is there something Amtrak specific here since the first thread?

How about how I spent the last weekend in Portland and had several people comment favorably on the Downeaster service.

It was nice to actually see "Amtrak" signage in the city.

(on another note, leaving Salem NH, hated to see the trackage NOT in use... be nice to have some service up that way.)

Actually Mr. Moore, while I of course note your comments with respect, there are several other topic threads at the Forum where Downeaster operations are being discussed.

This thread is discussing the social impact that the staging of two meaningless (neither has any effect whatever in the Presidential electoral process; a password or other authenticator will do just fine in place of the ".....our Great State that brings you the Miss Tire Retread Pagent.....casts our...votes for...." to nominate a candidase) events in two major Northeast cities will have on their mass transit facilities. Mass trainsit, incidentally, in Boston and New York represents "a bit more' to getting people about than it does, say, in Tuscon or Phoenix.

Quite simply, Amtrak and commuter agency operations will be adversely affected to a far greater extent than favorably arising from any additional business these Conventions will put on the table (whoops, in the seats). However I do concur with Mr. Drumcorps' comments regarding the favorable impact to the hospitality industry (in this case, on the table).

And lastly, lest we forget a couple of phrases such as 9/11 and Madrid have been added to our lexicon since the last one of these was staged.