lordsigma12345 wrote:More news - in addition to agreeing to take the actual Hartford Line tickets, Amtrak has lowered its actual SPG-NHV fares for the Shuttles and Northeast Regional through trains to match the Hartford Line. The new fares appear to apply only to trips between stations in the Hartford Line corridor - intercity fares from Hartford line stations to Northeast Corridor destinations beyond NHV remain the same. The Amtrak fare change will be effective on the launch date of Hartford Line service on June 16th. With this new change if commuters buy the ticket from Amtrak they won't get screwed by a higher rate. This also takes care of Windsor and Windsor Locks folks who will not have access to CTrail ticket machines - if boarding a CTrail they will be able to buy a ticket aboard penalty free and if boarding an Amtrak they can buy a ticket online with the Amtrak app.
Source for this info:
Facebook post by NHHS program: New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Rail Program CTDOT has received confirmation that Amtrak will accept Hartford Line tickets onboard all Amtrak trains between New Haven and Springfield upon service launch, with the exception of the Vermonter. Tickets sold by Amtrak will be at Amtrak fare rates. Tickets at Hartford Line fare rates will only be sold at TVMs at Hartford Line stations, except for Windsor and Windsor Locks, and on board CTrail Hartford Line trains. At the Meriden Ribbon Cutting Event, it was announced that Amtrak would be lowering one-way fares to match Hartford Line fares. Additional details will be forthcoming.
and Amtrak tickets are now available at their website at Hartford Line rates beginning June 16 - this can be seen by doing a ticket lookup beginning the date. If you do a Hartford - New Haven trip you'll see that you get a special commuter rate but if you do a Hartford - NYP trip you will see that fares remain the same bucket based fares as present. It appears upon inspection of how the fare is presented that the special commuter fares will also not be subject to fare buckets but obviously we will need to see confirmation on that.
I wish they would update their website to reflect some of the information they've provided over Facebook and Twitter. The website still says that they are "working to offer ticket sharing."