..... all seem intent nowadays on painting the New Haven main line as being woefully inadequate in terms of maintenance and modernity. Yet in my lifetime 39-ft rail has been replaced by welded, antiquated semaphores gave way to cab and dwarf signals, the Pequonnock moveable bridge (a huge project that even required a shoo-fly) was totally replaced, all stations were upgraded and fitted with high level well-lit platforms, the max passenger train speed was raised from 70 to 75 MPH, and for a brief season the speed limit from New Haven west towards New York was raised to 90 MPH for low-center-of-gravity trains like ACF's John Quincy Adams (Talgo) and Pullman-Standard's Dan'l Webster (Train X).
RAY wrote:..... all seem intent nowadays on painting the New Haven main line as being woefully inadequate in terms of maintenance and modernity. Yet in my lifetime 39-ft rail has been replaced by welded, antiquated semaphores gave way to cab and dwarf signals, the Pequonnock moveable bridge (a huge project that even required a shoo-fly) was totally replaced, all stations were upgraded and fitted with high level well-lit platforms, the max passenger train speed was raised from 70 to 75 MPH, and for a brief season the speed limit from New Haven west towards New York was raised to 90 MPH for low-center-of-gravity trains like ACF's John Quincy Adams (Talgo) and Pullman-Standard's Dan'l Webster (Train X).The DW and JQA ran in the New Haven days in the late 50's, at NO time in those days was the speed for any train west of New Haven any higher than 70 MPH.
Noel Weaver