Railroad Forums 

  • Night train to Boston

  • Discussion relating to the NH and its subsidiaries (NYW&B, Union Freight Railroad, Connecticut Company, steamship lines, etc.). up until its 1969 inclusion into the Penn Central merger. This forum is also for the discussion of efforts to preserve former New Haven equipment, artifacts and its history. You may also wish to visit www.nhrhta.org for more information.
Discussion relating to the NH and its subsidiaries (NYW&B, Union Freight Railroad, Connecticut Company, steamship lines, etc.). up until its 1969 inclusion into the Penn Central merger. This forum is also for the discussion of efforts to preserve former New Haven equipment, artifacts and its history. You may also wish to visit www.nhrhta.org for more information.
 #1453257  by oamundsen
 
Back in the 1960's, I frequently made weekend roundtrips from Boston where I was in collage to Stamford, CT near where my family lived because I worked weekends at my family's business. I usually took the Gilt Edge at 4 pm from South Station (often sitting on my suitcase) Friday and returned Sunday evening leaving Stamford around 9:30 pm arriving at Back Bay around midnight. This evening train was all couch and also made a stop somewhere in Rhode Island to spot an express car at what I believe was the RR Donally Printing plant. This past week I rode the Acela both ways and found that it made the 45 miles Boston/Providence just 8 minutes faster than the NH advertised back in steam days! What I am trying to figure out is what the night train was, and was it indeed almost clocking that Stamford/Boston trip nearly the same as today's Acela? Maybe Noel Weaver or someone else can provide some details, all I remember is we would come into Boston after a stop at Rt. 128 (which was just a platform in mainly empty woods)
with hair raising speed and smoking brakes. Funny, but it does not seem so long ago.
 #1453268  by Noel Weaver
 
In the 1960's it was probably train no. 30 which left New York (GCT) at 9:00 PM and carried mail and express plus coaches. IT was the State of Maine until McGinnis killed the State of Maine on the B & M and the post office offered the New Haven a mail RPO route from New York to Boston and Boston to New York on about the same schedule. These trains lasted until the RPO's came off shortly after Penn Central took over the New Haven in 1969. As for the Donnelly plant, it was just west of Old Saybrook but I don't recall any passenger trains ever stopping there to drop a car. I would have resulted in a huge loss of time on a train that carried a lot of students and military personnel. On Sundays I was a regular fireman on train 48 which left New York at 8:00 PM in 1968 and both 48 and 30 had good ridership on Sundays.
Noel Weaver
 #1465244  by leviramsey
 
Acela: 35 minutes Boston-Providence
NH: 43 minutes

That 8 minutes is a 23% improvement in average speed. Considering that the speeds inside of say Forest Hills and south of Attleboro are probably little changed, that suggests a rough doubling of Forest Hills to Attleboro speeds.
 #1465249  by Rockingham Racer
 
Noel Weaver wrote:In the 1960's it was probably train no. 30 which left New York (GCT) at 9:00 PM and carried mail and express plus coaches. IT was the State of Maine until McGinnis killed the State of Maine on the B & M and the post office offered the New Haven a mail RPO route from New York to Boston and Boston to New York on about the same schedule. These trains lasted until the RPO's came off shortly after Penn Central took over the New Haven in 1969. As for the Donnelly plant, it was just west of Old Saybrook but I don't recall any passenger trains ever stopping there to drop a car. I would have resulted in a huge loss of time on a train that carried a lot of students and military personnel. On Sundays I was a regular fireman on train 48 which left New York at 8:00 PM in 1968 and both 48 and 30 had good ridership on Sundays.
Noel Weaver
Noel, the OP mentioned he traveled between Boston and Stamford. The State of Maine left the New Haven at Worcester and headed to Lowell on the B&M, skipping Boston. The State of Maine also carried sleepers-- a lot of them back in the day.
 #1465311  by Noel Weaver
 
Rockingham Racer wrote:
Noel Weaver wrote:In the 1960's it was probably train no. 30 which left New York (GCT) at 9:00 PM and carried mail and express plus coaches. IT was the State of Maine until McGinnis killed the State of Maine on the B & M and the post office offered the New Haven a mail RPO route from New York to Boston and Boston to New York on about the same schedule. These trains lasted until the RPO's came off shortly after Penn Central took over the New Haven in 1969. As for the Donnelly plant, it was just west of Old Saybrook but I don't recall any passenger trains ever stopping there to drop a car. I would have resulted in a huge loss of time on a train that carried a lot of students and military personnel. On Sundays I was a regular fireman on train 48 which left New York at 8:00 PM in 1968 and both 48 and 30 had good ridership on Sundays.
Noel Weaver
Noel, the OP mentioned he traveled between Boston and Stamford. The State of Maine left the New Haven at Worcester and headed to Lowell on the B&M, skipping Boston. The State of Maine also carried sleepers-- a lot of them back in the day.
The State of Maine made its last trip in the fall of 1960 when McGinnis and the Boston and Maine decided they did not want to run it anymore. After that the New Haven in order to preserve the RPO and the mail and express business re-routed the State of Maine to Boston and they had an RPO and a few head end cars from that time on.
Noel Weaver