Greg Moore wrote:F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:trainhq wrote:Well, there's another problem with rail service to Springfield, called the MassPike. Buses
from Springfield can go 70 mph straight to Boston, and trains can't. And, they both go to the same location in Boston, namely South Station. This is very different from the Worcester situation, where the roads don't connect as directly, and the tracks are pretty
straight. Consequently, I think there will be a lot of push back from both politicians and
bus companies about spending more $$$$ on Boston-Springfield passenger rail; as in, is it really worth it? I think people will find this a harder sell than they thought at first.
Have you ever been in a Boston-Springfield or Boston-Hartford bus during a Friday afternoon rush hour on the Pike?
Yeah, they can go 65MPH (the speed limit in MA, and we know of course no bus driver would violate the law ":-) up until they hit I-84. Then all bets are off. Or until they hit the I-95 exchange. Or closer to Boston.
In addition, trains can stop at Back Bay, which is convenient for many.
Finally, not all riders will be going all the way to Boston. Some might (though for reasons I'm not sure about 
might decide to alight in Worcester.
I used to do this same Fri. afternoon slog Boston-Hartford on Peter Pan back when I was a poor car-less college student. And that's exactly how I'd describe it: all bets are off. The stopover in Worcester usually wasn't too bad, but it was a crapshoot whether the driver had to get off straight onto I-290 or take the backroads from Route 122 to avoid the traffic (this was before 290 got rebuilt in downtown). Sometimes the I-495 exit would lock up if there was an accident...but most of the time 84 was where it came to a screeching halt. Or the approach to the mangled I-291 interchange in Springfield when it was an L-shaped routing instead of a Hartford direct. Then of course if the timing was off even a hair 84 in East Hartford could be jammed over the bridge requiring yet another detour through the Founders Bridge and city streets.
I usually told my ride home to arrive at the bus station 15 minutes after the scheduled arrival, because I had no idea when I departed whether we'd be 10 minutes early or an hour late. It was
that variable, so I made them split the difference on the pickup.
And then on the return trip Sun., if you happen to be going during that magic 6:00-8:00pm time frame when everyone's returning home from the weekend...the tolls coming off 84 sometimes jam 2 miles deep into Sturbridge and the Pike eastbound crawls all the way to 290. Half the time the bus would have to bail at the Sturbridge Village exit, make its way over to Route 20, and go that way to get back on in Auburn.
I agree that any other time except Fri. rush and Sun. night it's a pretty quick trip, but there were some days checking the traffic reports before I left for South Station...where I knew I was going to be in for a long one...where I really wished the then still-running Inlands had any sort of schedule match whatsoever with when I needed to leave because I'd happily pay the premium to have some sort of certainty on when I'd arrive at Hartford Union. There is DEFINITELY a market for this. Especially at 79 MPH in MBTA territory and the tangent Palmer-Springfield stretch. Because I'm not even sure the open-road tolling MassHighway is set to implement is going to do enough for 84, because most of the time it's not even the toll queues backing up 3/4 mile onto the Pike that does it but the hundred big rigs per hour that have to slow to 15 MPH to take the sharp curves on that ramp. And there's no hope for Springfield until the 291 ramps are nuked off the face of the earth and get a total do-over.
Basic, eminently doable Class 4 speeds on either side of the Worcester hills (then grin and bear it in the middle) and on the Springfield Line with the freight congestion solved by DT and crossovers is all it really needs to close the travel time gap with the buses so the inherent comfort advantages of the trains makes it a very competitive mode for all but the lowest-budget riders. I'm not expecting funding to make good on Class 5 on either line this route travels, but it really doesn't have to cost that much to get the entirety of the non-Worcester Hills part of the route up to acceptable speed and reliability. Couple with decent departure times and it pretty much is the mid- and premium-tier preferred mode because of the much better OTP and schedule certainty it can achieve vs. the Pike buses, regardless of whether the Pike buses are faster
most days. If you're hitching a ride home to Hartford Union or getting off at Bradley to catch a flight...you can't have that hour's variance on a Fri. evening bus, a holiday getaway day, or any old day when an ill-placed accident hoses everything. At it's worst the train's only going to get that seriously borked a couple times a month vs. several times a week for the bus. Knowing what schedule you're buying for that ticket is a big, big thing that people on this L-shaped corridor crave.
(And, yes, the market for interior Southern New England intercity has grown leaps and bounds over the last 10-15 years and has a pent-up demand the previous crippled Inland implementation really didn't have.)
