Danbury Branch - History, Electrification, Studies

I never said it'd be a waste of money. I only commented on how expensive it would cost to put the wires back up. If CDOT had the money and decided to put the overhead wire back up, it would have no bigger cheerleader than me. Electrics can take off much faster than those rebuilt Gennies and it would allow the M8s (or M10s!!) to run through to GCT and give MNRR more flexiblity. But that's just my opinion.

And since your opinion is not based on experience but pure railfan rumor it has little or no impact.
All your so called pro points were already shot down in other discussions.
electric trains are only marginally faster in acceleration, but far worse in braking.
Track speed won't improve much , and Danbury would still only rate same amount of trains to GCT as it does now.
If New Canaan does still have shuttle service, do you really think the Danbury with far less passengers will run through service ?????

I never said that there would not be any benefits to putting the wires back up on the Danbury Branch but the benefits would not nearly justify the massive expense of doing this job.
Noel Weaver

Noel both you and I know,as long as people keep believing politicians, instead of those that worked the branch or railroad.
Based on electrification renewal number on New Canaan about 12/14 years back, the price of electrification on the Danbury branch would run around $200 million.
then about 32 more M-8's would need to be bought at $3 million a pop for total of $ 296 million tax payer contributions.
and all for a difference in 3 minutes per train ???
Does it save in crew cost answer is no
Does it save in maintenance, answer is no
Is it more comfortable, answer is no
Is it more dependable, answer is no
Will it save energy, maybe, the amount of energy to move a train would still be same, but you may save a bit on price of fuel, and you don't need to move engine, just MU cars.
Will it save on pollution, probably but not by much, it will be less noise pollution, but unwanted electrical wires are a pollutant of living environment.
Lets study this some more and piss away a few more million dollars.

Part of the problem with such restored service is what to do with parking.

From at least Kent north in Connecticut, none of the old stations have much parking (and most are in private hands) so you'd be looking at buying/building. Falls Village might be an exception since the building was bought from the former owner by the historical society with state grant money. You might be able to induce them to do something with more money. But even then, parking is at a premium there. You're better off building either directly north (taking land from Jacob's garage) or south of town near the high school.

For Canaan (North Canaan) there's far more land available in the are for parking.

I think Pittsfield would be fine too.

That said, I do miss the old Bonanza bus service from NYC that basically followed Rte 7.

Berkshire service is a wonderful thought, and many people might even enjoy it and ride on it, but lest we forget, every train that gets added loses money. Lots of money. With the high level of liability, labor costs, and operating expenses, it will always lose lots of money.

Losing money is ok with Connecticut provided that it sees the loss part of a net gain. If taxpaying citizens commuting to work remain employed, and busineses are served, then the loss is balanced out. But in order to justify stuffing a train to Massachusetts, you'd have to raise the price to a level that would be prohibitive for most people, and the bus would take all the business away.

I love the idea, but even in good times (which its not) it won't happen.

I agree, not in my lifetime. It would be nice if Metro-North had something similar to what the LIRR has - the Cannonball.

Maybe one of these days we might see a Wassaic train first stop Patterson. Hey, I can dream.

Jeff Smith wrote: Who's going to stand for three hours? I'm not familiar enough with what's in Amtrak's fleet, but I'd guess Amfleets? would do for that distance.

Bar car patrons are enjoying the trip so much, having such a good time socializing that they probably have forgotten they're standing!!!

I'm not sure if it's ever been discussed or brought up. I heard someone on the shuttle bus talking last night about a petition that went around to get MTA to operate a shuttle of some sort for people from the Merrit 7 stop down to South Norwalk station.

I know I have attempted to commute completely by rail from SoNo to the Merrit 7 office but the times the trains run are very sparse. The alternative currently is the Norwalk Transit District, which during the rush hour departure from anywhere in Norwalk in the evenings can be hectic and a typical 10 minute trip can take upwards of 30-40+ sometimes causing people to miss trains.

It may sound a bit ranty, but I was just curious if it was ever proposed or if anyone has any information regarding this short run? I know Danbury is a single rail in this area so I am not sure what the reasoning is behind such far and few timetables.

This was actually discussed as one of the options in the Danbury Branch Electrification Study, if I remember correctly-- they were going to extend electrification to there. IMHO if you're going to stop short of Danbury, either Branchville or Wilton would make more sense as a end point. I think Branchville is actually the busiest station on the entire line.

I actually just found and red through that study via a google search. I wouldn't mind the electrification, so long as more trains run up and down the line to offer better access than stuffing the roads with more shuttle buses.

IrideNHline wrote:
It may sound a bit ranty, but I was just curious if it was ever proposed or if anyone has any information regarding this short run? I know Danbury is a single rail in this area so I am not sure what the reasoning is behind such far and few timetables.

I think the reasoning is having enough people on a train to justify the expense of more trains. Every train loses money, so adding more trains just means adding more to the tax bill of Connecticut residents, who expect these days especially to see as little of their hard-earned money wasted as possible.

It seems to me that while it does not make sense to electrify the entire Danbury line, it might make sense to add an electrified track between SoNo and Merrit 7 for the purposes of shuttling people to and from the main line. Of course, you'd need to modify both stations at the same time to accommodate it, install overhead lines, purchase at least one engine, and pay people to operate it. Assuming that there was demand enough to operate such a shuttle, how many decades would it take to pay back that investment, assuming that it ever had a chance to at least break even?

I hope that the petition is intended to be given to Connecticut legislators, because it is a waste of time to submit it to Metro North. It is CDOT who would need to propose it, order 25 years of studies, and ultimately fund it by increasing the public debt.

This isn't really a Metro-North problem... You really want to petition CT Transit for a dedicated shuttle to run between Merritt 7 and South Norwalk to fill in the gaps in the train schedule. I can't see Metro-North going through the expense of getting another train set and crew just to serve what could be 50 or 60 people...

50 - 60 is about how many people merit 7 generates in a day, including the current thru trains.

my thoughts on a merrit 7 shuttle is I would not mind if the route 7 link connects to it. Currently there is no easy way to connect to the south norwalk train station from Danbury using the merrit 7 link bus if there in no train in my case, I cannot during bussing bring my bike on the Bustitution busses which has been a "Nightmare" for me me. I know I know... I should have bought a fold up bike by not but I have never gotten around to it. Just throwing in my thoughts.