I took CTrail #6457 HFD to MDN on Saturday. A friend had tickets to the Flower & Garden Show at the Connecticut Convention Center, so I thought I'd go for a bit. There was another event happening upstairs, so the parking lot was full, but there were only about 15 people on the train! I have some connections at the Convention Center, so I will look into getting this changed. Directions to get there by train are on their website, in addition to Hartford's free DASH shuttle. I'm not sure why the shuttle wasn't running for the event. That was my first time taking a CTrail train; I've taken the Amtrak Shuttles countless times. The MBB Coaches are actually not bad! I love the much bigger windows compared to the Amfleets, and the seats were actually pretty comfortable. The train didn't accelerate as fast as a Shuttle does, but not much slower: we arrived in MDN two minutes early!
What's the deal with Meriden & Wallingford and their low speed limits? There was a lot of slow running coming into Meriden, which ends up making the scheduled average speed only about 21.5 mph for 7.3 miles. Wasn't that the whole reason quad gates were installed?!? I also don't understand the deal with the quiet zones. After the train left MDN, the locomotive sounded its horn. I'm not sure if I heard the speaker sounding the horn, which it apparently does for the entire time the gates are down?!? What's the point of that? That's hardly a reduction in noise.
Finally, I got to see the craziness that is Amtrak Shuttle #475 leaving HFD on Friday as a friend boarded. There were no more seats on the train, and there were about 11 UPass holders who the conductor told to wait. He went and checked with the other conductor and they eventually allowed them to board, but I heard from my friend that everyone was packed in like sardines. Wasn't that what Amtrak didn't want? I don't get it. CT needs to pony up the damn money! What can we do?
It's great that this line started and that it's doing so well, but it can be better!