by afiggatt
jp1822 wrote:Try booking from Albany to Toronto or Montreal. As has been posted, a large part of the problem on the Adirondack AND Maple Leaf is that they are the FIRST early morning trains out of NYP to Albany and carry a LOT of local traffic. Same can be said for the Friday evening and Sunday evening Ethan Allen Express to/from NYP and Albany.I just used Amsnag to check the availability of seats for the next 21 days for NYP to Toronto (TWO) and then Rochester to TWO. Amsnag shows Sold Out 4 out of the next 5 days for NYP to TWO, while seats are available all of those days for ROC to TWO. Confirms that the biggest issue with the Maple Leaf is NYP to Albany and upper NY state traffic taking away seats that could be sold through TWO.
It would be more interesting to see if the problem could be alleviated by putting a more "local train" from NYP to Albany on the schedule in between the departure times of the Maple Leaf and Adirondack (depart NYP at 7:30 a.m. for a 10 a.m. arrival at Albany). OR a train that left NYP for Albany at say 6:45 a.m. and got to Alabany in the 9 a.m. hour. This may be more appealing for the business travelers/locals - and those that even have monthly passes. I know a few people who have monthly passes and commute on the Empire Corridor between NYP and Albany intermediate points.
The weekday schedule has trains departing ALB to NYP at 5:10 AM, 6:10, 7:00, 8:05 AM. Meanwhile the NYP departures northbound are the ML at 7:15 AM, the Adirondack at 8:15 AM. With the growth of ridership on the corridor, the balance in the traffic load pattern appear to have changed to more people heading north from NYP to ALB in the morning. It may take more equipment, but perhaps they should consider a 6:30 AM NYP to ALB train to arrive ALB at ~9 AM which would work for business travelers. That would free up seats on the ML for trips to upper state NY and TWO.
If the Customs facility opens in Montreal, the Adirondack should be shifted to a later departure from NYP to allow for better connections from south of NYP. That would presumably result in a NYP-ALB train getting shifted earlier to a circa 8:15 AM NYP departure.
When the ML starts selling out on a regular basis or getting close to selling out on trips to/from TWO, then it would be time to look at adding a second daily ML. My thinking is that if several hours can be cut off of the Adirondack trip time, that it will be the more likely service of the two to get a second daily train added first.
