Amtrak Downeaster Discussion Thread

From the Portland Press Herald:

Portland Press Herald wrote:The chairman of the Maine Board of Environmental Protection has ruled that an appeal of a planned Amtrak train layover facility in Brunswick can proceed.

Members of the citizens group Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition filed the appeal on July 16, arguing that the Department of Environmental Protection committed numerous procedural and technical errors when it granted a stormwater management permit to the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority in June. The coalition requested that the board review and rescind the final permit the rail authority needed to build the $12.7 million train holding and service facility.
. . .
Parker’s decision means the BEP – a seven-member board that considers appeals – will likely hear oral arguments on the case later this fall. The board could also decide to grant a public hearing on the issue.
. . .
Earlier in July, the neighborhood group had written to DEP Commissioner Patricia Aho requesting that she stay or freeze the rail authority’s stormwater management permit while the group appeals the decision. Aho declined that request, however, on Aug. 11 and said that many of the coalition’s arguments for suspending the permit were considered during the department’s review of the permit application.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/19/b ... -facility/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dick H wrote:I recall several years ago that it was mentioned that the double track request from PAR
for a sixth round trip would be CPF258 to CPF273, Newfield's to Plaistow.

The entire 15 miles? That's sounds like a pretty big request! Is this actually likely?

I don't see why not. Although doubling up through stations with a platform on each side or center platform would allow for smoother operations. There are some commuter operations in the Los Angeles area that operate like that.

With the present project south of Lawrence, that would allow Pan Am's vital freights to run around those slow Amtrak passenger trains

Op-ed in yesterday's Maine Sunday Telegram:

Maine Sunday Telegram wrote:Everything mentioned in your Aug. 2 front-page article (“Downeaster in recovery mode after dismal year”) on the Downeaster’s comeback effort raises questions about the competence of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority as manager of the passenger service.
. . .
NNEPRA’s single-minded focus has always been about ridership and customer experience, worthy goals but not the sole responsibility of good management.
. . .
Certainly, operational challenges are imposed by cold, snow, ice and rain and the inability to procure essential maintenance equipment and materials to facilitate timely tie installations.

Regardless, however, responsible management of a public transportation service must be forthright, honest and objective in communicating with its patrons and the general public. People can understand problems when the cause is fully explained and such information is readily available.
. . .
Instead of NNEPRA management’s high-risk, “toughing it out” day-by-day approach to operations, might it actually have saved money and avoided damage to its reputation by suspending service to Maine stations while repairs were made to 27 miles of line within the state? That’s exactly what Amtrak is sensibly doing for the next 11 months with its weekday Springfield-New Haven shuttle service, substituting buses during that period.

Read the rest at http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/23/m ... -question/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Whatever else happens to the Downeaster NNERPA needs to get FRA and Amtrak track geometry cars on the line 2 - 3 times a year so PAR cannot let the track go bad. Especially after the winter.

PT1101 wrote:On the Downeaster route, stations do have 1 Car - 4 Car signs. The exceptions being Portland, Brunswick, Haverhill, Woburn, and Boston. Apparently, plans had been in the works for signs ever since the Downeaster service began. The signs appeared within the last few years, after an engineer transferred into the Portland crew base. Apparently he had trouble putting the engineer's side window by "the big rock by the broken tree" at Durham, NH, and putting the "broken telegraph pole between the windshields" when spotting the third double eastbound at Wells. The story goes he went to Lowes, and bought a bundle of 3' stakes, and some orange marking paint. During each qualifying run, he would ask the crew to spot certain doors at the center of each platform. If the crew said it was a good spot, he would drop a stake out the window onto the ground. The next trip he would get out and pound the stake into the ground. And the third time around he would paint it orange so that it would be easier to see in the fall, in fog, and at night.

What a great story. I'm not convinced it's authentic. But who knows. I like the detail of stopping a third time to paint the things. Why not just paint them all before you place them?

west point wrote:Whatever else happens to the Downeaster NNERPA needs to get FRA and Amtrak track geometry cars on the line 2 - 3 times a year so PAR cannot let the track go bad. Especially after the winter.

I doubt that would help much. It appears that this was a sudden, but admittedly predictable, collapse of aging ties and track structure from severe winter weather conditions. In short it was not progressive and more geometry runs probably would not have helped. Better planning of capital expenditures maybe.

More geometry runs would give them important information sooner, but they — and by they I mean PAR and NNEPRA — still have to choose what to do with that information. If they do nothing, the end result would still be exactly the same as before: delays, slow orders, and cancellations.

From the Portland Press Herald:

Portland Press Herald wrote:Crews will start work on an Amtrak train layover facility in Brunswick next month even though the Board of Environmental Protection could kill the project if it rules in favor of a neighborhood group that is appealing a decision to allow construction.

Clearing of the site will start as early as Sept. 14 and the superstructure is scheduled to be built this fall, said Matt Tonello, project executive with Consigli Construction, which is building the $12.4 million, 60,000-square-foot train shed.
. . .
The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which manages the Downeaster train service, has all the necessary permits to begin construction and is confident that the appeal will be rejected, said Patricia Quinn, the authority’s director.

“We’ve got a good plan,” she said. “The Department of Environmental Protection says we have met the standards. We are moving forward.”
. . .
Residents have opposed the facility because of noise and pollution concerns.

Tonello said work crews will be capping the site and reducing the risk of groundwater pollution.

“They will end up with a much cleaner site, obviously with a building on it, than what they’re seeing today,” he said.

The building’s design incorporates concrete blocks encased in a layer of sound-proofing foam insulation to mitigate noise from trains inside the shed.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/27/t ... ng-appeal/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

About the track problems this spring and summer. The FRA posted a bulletin about ballast inspections and maybe we should wonder if PAR did not do the proper inspections ?

https://www.federalregister.gov/article ... lopment-of" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Taking my first ride on the Downeaster this coming week for business (BON-POR and back). Is the OTP still as miserable as I've always heard?

I never thought it had a bad OTP situation before, and now that the Ties From Hell have been replaced I think they're back close to the schedule. I just checked this past Friday's arrivals in Portland and almost all were within a very few minutes of the TT.

markhb wrote:I just checked this past Friday's arrivals in Portland and almost all were within a very few minutes of the TT.

It's about time.

markhb wrote:I never thought it had a bad OTP situation before, and now that the Ties From Hell have been replaced I think they're back close to the schedule. I just checked this past Friday's arrivals in Portland and almost all were within a very few minutes of the TT.

Don't have to check just one day. The Amtrak Status Maps Database website tool shows that the OTP of the Downeasters markedly improved after the end of the track work on July 31. For all the northbound Downeaster from August 2 to 31, 150 trains in all, the average (mean) arrival delay at POR was 10 minutes. The median delay was 7 minutes. Here is a (long) link to the Status Maps Database set up for the odd numbered Downeasters (681 to 699) arrivals at POR from August 2 to 31 which shows all 150 train arrival times.

There were 34 trips that were more than 15 minutes late arriving at POR, so the August OTP percentage is not going to look that great. But there were only 3 trips more than 40 minutes late, so the Downeaster had a much better August for reliability than during the track and tie work mess.