FREQUENCY, CONNECTIVITY, AND DEPENDABILITY.

Regional Passenger Rail is catching on in the Connecticut River Valley north of Springfield.  The day I arrived in Springfield was the day the local authorities dedicated a new high-level passenger platform serving two tracks, complete with local news coverage.  As part of the rail rebirth, the public spaces of Springfield's Union Station have been returned to use.  For years, the Amtrak facilities, such as they were, were the concourse on the south side of the building, with a ticket office upstairs.  The head building was still standing, if derelict, and it was rebuilt, with some of the public spaces put to use as waiting rooms for local and intercity buses.  (That's the same concept as Milwaukee's intermodal station using a former Milwaukee Road station.)  Now the head building is open again, and it includes some eateries and a convenience store.  (Milwaukee please copy.)

That's the recently restored and reopened north entrance.  The taxi rank is out the south door, which used to be the only entrance.  There are no more flapping card Solari boards along the Northeast Corridor, although this successor offers the same visual aspect (but with no electronic clicking to call attention.)

Note that the Vermonters headed up-river and down-river are both on time, and both due in the station ahead of the westbound Lake Shore.  That gives passengers along the river between New Haven and wherever the Vermonter originates these days the option of an all-rail ride from, for instance Hartford for Cleveland, or White River Junction for Chicago, that is, if Amtrak allow the connection.  The return trip, not so much, as the Boston section calls eastbound around 5.30 pm.  We'll see how well that augmented Hartford Line service that's currently running does.

In addition, the residents of the Pioneer Valley have been making a case for additional service west of Worcester, where the Boston suburban zone ends, to Springfield.  That's posing a number of difficulties.

Discussions are still in the early stages. The Department of Transportation has been studying six Boston-Springfield train alternatives, along with additional train or bus service to Pittsfield. The options range from sending up to six trains a day from Springfield to Worcester along existing tracks, to connect with the MBTA’s commuter rail service, to building a new high-speed line along the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Augmenting the existing rail service along the existing former Boston and Albany is not as easy as it looks, as that's a single-track railroad with passing sidings and at least one major hill between Boston and Worcester, and the Christmas-wish-bullet-train on the Turnpike right of way would have to be elevated, plus the Turnpike is up and down over those same ridges.  I wonder if anyone at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation is looking at the old Central Massachusetts line from Northampton via Amherst toward Worcester as a possibility, or if that grade has so been built on in the years since abandonment and the construction of the Quabbin and Wachusett reservoirs that the elevated line along the Turnpike is cheaper.

Let's leave that for another day and go for a train ride.  There is a direct stairway and elevator to the high-level platform serving two tracks, but passengers for the Lake Shore must use the existing stairs of the etiolated station of years past, then cross three live tracks to their platform.

That's the stock of the 4 pm train for Hartford and New Haven alongside the new platform.  With the train show in progress, I'm not the only trainspotter taking pictures.

The Vermont-bound Vermonter, four Amfleet corridor coaches and a cafe car with Business class, fairly standard rake for Amtrak's regional trains.  Yes, the diesel is pointed at Boston: the station is east of the New Haven and Boston and Maine tracks, and all through trains for or from the North Country would head in and back out, or back in and head out, depending on what the Train Director ordered.  As we've noted previously, the ruins of New York Central's former passenger infrastructure are still common along the line.  Add Springfield to Rochester, Erie, and Toledo.

Set back onto the New Haven, wait for the signal to cross the Boston and Albany, highball for the ski hills and maple groves.  We won't see that maneuver, as there's something else going on.

Here's the Boston section of the Lake Shore: two diesels, baggage car, sleeper, Business Class cafe car, one coach.  Loadings out of Springfield will be pretty good, many of the people in the first class queue will secure an easy chair in Business Class and get their rest that way.  A four car train is a pale shadow of the old New England States, on the other hand it's an improvement over the snack-coach and diesel connection to Penn Central's Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto train of just before Amtrak: that is, the train that a Kalmbach caption writer compared with a "dejected old hound."

There's no track work going on over the Berkshires, and the train makes East Albany at about 5.30, now we wait for the New York cars to get in and the sleeper passengers have an opportunity to walk across the platform to the table car.  Plenty of time for pictures.

That's the stock of one of the Albany to New York trains waiting at right.  In time, the New York cars show up: dual mode diesel, two coaches, table car, two sleepers, baggage car.  It's going to be a full train with a lot of people bound back to Syracuse or Rochester or Buffalo; my impression the next morning is that the loads thinned out considerably overnight.  More not-quite Noodles bowls for supper.

Years ago, when the Twentieth Century and New England States ran on similar schedules across the northern tier, both were primarily sleeping car trains.  Note in this 1966 schedule that the Century overtook the States at Buffalo: that ultimately prompted New York Central to combine the trains at Buffalo.  By then both trains included coaches, and there would likely be an opportunity to cut coaches westbound or add them eastbound for those intrastate riders at the same time that the Toronto and Detroit cars were being switched out or in.  These days, though, adding or dropping coaches is a lost art for Amtrak (one car at Denver, one at the Cities, I have trouble thinking of any other.)

The ninety minutes Amtrak allow between the arrival of the Boston cars and the departure of the combined train are sufficient for a Hiawatha to cover the ground between Milwaukee and Chicago, and in that time the only switching work is to cut the motor off the New York cars, pull the Boston cars ahead and set them back on the New York cars, and now the Boston passengers who crossed the platform to the table car negotiate the crowded coaches back to their sleeper on the head end.

When there isn't track work or heavy freight traffic in progress, the passengers move out, just fine.  It's my usual sleep as practicable, don't fret too much about stops or timekeeping.  I have the impression we waited for time at Cleveland and Toledo, and into Chicago fifteen minutes to the good.

Good ride, relaxing enough, some good conversation at dinner, and yet, in the same way that there's no circus without elephants, there's no overnight train without French Toast at breakfast.