Hartford Line CtDOT New Haven-Springfield - NHHS (Before Launch of Service)

I'm sure others can provide specifics, but I think the major remaining single track area will be from the CT River Bridge through Windsor Locks station.

The current round of construction will leave Hartford proper, plus about 8 miles through Windsor Locks and Enfield. The $50 million in state funds approved last month fund the design (and possibly some construction) on the remaining double track north of Hartford except for the CT River bridge; some more money will probably be forthcoming for construction. It's also not clear whether the new State Street platform is an island or a side.

Once all of that is complete, only the big-money projects with Hartford and the CT River bridge will be single-tracked.

State's new platform is a side (old one an island). Been under construction since July. Progress shot from December:




Hartford Viaduct's being left alone because DT'ing it would require initiating major structural rehab of the whole thing, and that's not a decision they can make until it's decided if the I-84 Viaduct replacement megaproject is going to relocate the rail line. Right now the preferred I-84 alignments are tilting more towards relocation, so they're only likely to band-aid the rail viaduct as-is for however long it takes to build the new below-grade 'bunker' alignment.

CT River Bridge is overdue for a complete and total superstructure replacement, which is outside the scope of the project and has to be tackled separately with a completely different funding effort. The steelwork on the second trackbed is in pretty deplorable shape, and needs replacement that's only practical to lump in with the total superstructure replacement. Not sure why they explicitly separated that one structure out from the rest of the line upgrades. Might be because they can tap more freight funding streams for it, as the bridge is the last thing keeping the Springfield Line from being uprated to 286K to Hartford Yard, linking CSOR & CNZR's 286K-rated Armory and Griffins branches to the outside world, and gaining both carriers that rating to CSX and PAS interchanges.

Is the present platform at New Haven (State St) between TKs 3 and 1, or between TKs 2 and 4?
Thanks!
Andy

Between 4 and 6.

Not sure if this is totally on topic, but when Amtrak replaces the trains with buses on the Springfield line, who operates that service (ct transit, Greyhound etc)?

On a related note, what happens to the crews that were running the cancelled trains? Are they reassigned or furloughed?

Dattco buses cover the "bustitution" needs for Amtrak on the Hartford Line - fairly sure that this is supported ultimately by CDoT Rail.
Conductors and assistant conductors ride the Springfield bus runs, engine service folks bid elsewhere (regarding the usual weekday bustitution schedules).

Interesting, though I feel bad for the engineers these past couple years must have been frustrating.

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hartford Union plans for 84mageddon unveiled. . .

State planners gave the public its first look at plans for a new transit hub that would transform a 20-acre area west of Union Station during a forum Thursday night at Hartford Public Library.

The four options have been developed by the Department of Transportation since January, when it began studying what should come of Union Station once a new train station is built in conjunction with an overhaul of the I-84 viaduct.

All of the options surveyed have the ROW relocated in a common cut with the highway 2 blocks west, 'bunker' style, so that is overwhelmingly emerging as the preferred engineering choice. The options surveyed run through whether none/some/all of the buses will travel across the block with the trains or stay partially or all at the old station. Construction sequence has the rail line being relocated first before most of the major highway work, and a barebones temp station built in the cut serving trains until adjacent highway construction is complete and they're able to buff it out to full capacity and amenities and cover over with an air rights deck to top off with a station building.

Is there a site/document that zooms out to see how the rail gets realigned to serve the new station location?
Also, will it be forever 2 track or could a 3rd / 4th be added?

Arlington wrote:Is there a site/document that zooms out to see how the rail gets realigned to serve the new station location?
Also, will it be forever 2 track or could a 3rd / 4th be added?

Lots of docs on the I-84 project site. They don't show much more than the property lines, but Hartford Viaduct is quad-width so Amtrak signoff is contingent on getting equal in return on the land swap. Also, because of the varied service patterns on the Hartford Line with some trains terminating/originating @ HFD and some running thru, the station needs provisions to fan out into a Providence-esque number of platforms, so the cut will widen out at the station-proper.

Thanks, that's ​the 4-track reassurance I was looking for.

On the i84 site, there was a bewildering array of highway options with alphanumeric designators of the flavor 3W(E2)B that I couldn't tell whether I was looking at a settled highway alignment or a settled rail alignment (or neither)

Arlington wrote:Thanks, that's ​the 4-track reassurance I was looking for.

On the i84 site, there was a bewildering array of highway options with alphanumeric designators of the flavor 3W(E2)B that I couldn't tell whether I was looking at a settled highway alignment or a settled rail alignment (or neither)

It can be quite a bit confusing, but at least it's solid evidence the team involved with this is being thorough and serious... it's no NEC Future study.

YamaOfParadise wrote:

Arlington wrote:Thanks, that's ​the 4-track reassurance I was looking for.

On the i84 site, there was a bewildering array of highway options with alphanumeric designators of the flavor 3W(E2)B that I couldn't tell whether I was looking at a settled highway alignment or a settled rail alignment (or neither)

It can be quite a bit confusing, but at least it's solid evidence the team involved with this is being thorough and serious... it's no NEC Future study.

The common cut actually ended up being cheaper and less convoluted than trying to preserve access to existing Hartford Union with the rail viaduct weaving over a completely changed highway grade. This was always the most straightforward option, so the only circumstances that would force a rebuild of the rail viaduct is if the public really wanted the old building to be the RR station that badly. And since the building isn't going anywhere and would--whether it continues to be the bus depot or gets redeveloped--still serve some public use on a contiguous block where the 2-block difference with the new station is covered over by air rights, few people see any big loss amid the large upside of the project as a whole. And so it was always overwhelmingly likely that the cut option would prevail. Old Hartford Union will still be one of downtown's jewels, and downtown will be better the quicker they can get this show on the road with I-84.

The cut actually does a whole lot of good for realigning the ROW straighter. The project area starts back at the Capitol Ave. overpass where the Sisson Ave. ramps are going to be removed, the small weave the highway makes between Exits 46 & 47 straightened for better geometry, and Capitol Ave.' is due to be daylighted instead of traveling under the rail line and highway. Rail line will stay where it is on that very gentle curve to Flower St. with the highway realigned to match it in a common cut. From Flower to Myrtle St. both get realigned to eliminate their S-curves through Bushnell Park, and Myrtle & Spring St.'s get realigned by the reshaping of the hillside around the cut. End of project area for the rail line is the Griffins Secondary junction, where the missing west leg of the wye is Amtrak property that must be preserved (the parking lot in the middle of the wye is going to get blown up and reshaped by the street grid changes). Highway rebuild continue around the curve to the existing cut @ High St.


To illustrate how this is going to work: go on Google and use the measuring tool. You can draw a 2000 ft. straight line from the corner of the Aetna garage on Flower to the junction with the Griffins Secondary and see for yourself how much straighter it's going to be. Fast approach from both sides...should make station dwells and getting in and out easy as pie, make it fully 'intercity-ready', and allow for easy straight shots to a mid-line layover yard next to the freight yard or Tilcon plant. About 3 buildings on Garden & Spring St.'s would be sacrificed for the mass realignment, but otherwise the station 'bunker' spanning the Asylum-Church blocks is just burrowed under the hillside and capped off with the adjacent highway while Myrtle is reshaped on top. Using the Google measuring tool once more, draw a triangle from that 2000 ft. line...down Spruce and the existing Hartford Union parking lot, then back to the first point on the map where you started drawing the rail realignment. Google now calculates the total area when you connect the dots, and this will show roughly how much surface area is now freed up by sinking the highway and rail line into a cut then gradually covering over. >600,000 sq. ft., less any realigned city streets slicing through the triangle. HUGE amount of land, some of which will generously expand the size of Bushnell Park when the rail viaduct is torn down.

Now shorten the triangle so it's bounded by Asylum, Spruce, and the relocated rail cut. About 300,000+ sq. ft. sitting on top of or adjacent to the new station and spanning the 2 blocks to the old station. This is all the room you have available for a headhouse, waiting room, and connecting development spanning the block. More if the new headhouse is a multi-story building. That's more than enough to build the largest integrated transit center between New York and Boston, and tons and tons of mixed-use real estate. There'd be room in the cut for multiple 1000 ft. (Northeast Regional length) platforms...Albany/Providence-style with 2 two-track islands. Maybe provisions for a third island if they want to 100-year future-proof themselves in case NEC FUTURE gets dragged kicking and screaming through Hartford. And most certainly an PRV-esque unpowered freight passing track with additional clearances since freight traffic on the whole of the Springfield Line is at its daily densest between Hartford Yard and Berlin Jct. (very similar to how P&W runs through the PRV Station passer from a similarly-situated yard just north of that newish cut).


Final makeup obviously contingent on putting together the temp station (i.e. rail line relocated before highway) into design, then sketching out final platform-level configuration and doing that whole decade-long debate about how big they're gonna go on the capped surface re: integrating the buses, new development, yada yada. As of now all we have are the property line allowances from the more or less agreed-upon alignment, and the relative certainty of the partial/temp station build (at minimum one functional two-track island with ADA up/down access while the rest of the neighborhood is a construction warzone for another 10 years. Everything from there can and will be debated to exhaustion, including architectural aesthetics. But it's one hell of a juicy parcel that can handle every transpo function you could ever dream up. I don't think we'll be lamenting the loss of trains stopping at old Hartford Union at all if they do this property right. Once-in-a-lifetime transformative opportunity.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Final makeup obviously contingent on putting together the temp station (i.e. rail line relocated before highway) into design, then sketching out final platform-level configuration and doing that whole decade-long debate about how big they're gonna go on the capped surface re: integrating the buses, new development, yada yada. As of now all we have are the property line allowances from the more or less agreed-upon alignment, and the relative certainty of the partial/temp station build (at minimum one functional two-track island with ADA up/down access while the rest of the neighborhood is a construction warzone for another 10 years. Everything from there can and will be debated to exhaustion, including architectural aesthetics. But it's one hell of a juicy parcel that can handle every transpo function you could ever dream up. I don't think we'll be lamenting the loss of trains stopping at old Hartford Union at all if they do this property right. Once-in-a-lifetime transformative opportunity.

It's a lot like what Providence did in the 1980's, isn't it? Right down to getting tracks off the Statehouse lawn.

The difference being that, unlike in Providence, where the new alignment basically rules out any restoration of the East Junction branch, this leaves all route options out of HFD open.