CTDOT: Hartford Line

Big turnout on the 9:55 southbound train from Springfield this morning. Train was full and had to turn people away in Hartford. Good turnout for opening weekend.


Mod Note: I am doing some housekeeping within this thread. I have split apart the original (before launch of service), and will make individual station threads to track the new infill stations, as well as an Hartford station (I-84 rebuild) relocation thread eventually.

There is a now sticky at the top of the forum for a list of current threads.

ADMIN NOTE: For discussion of the AMTRAK NEC Inland service between New Haven, Springfield, the Valley Flyer, and any potential inland routing: AMTRAK NEC: Springfield Shuttle/Regional/Valley Flyer

http://www.hartfordline.com/pdf/Hartfor ... etable.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Do you really need every single Metro-North station north of Stamford on the connection list? Like, why not get rid of Southport, Rowayton, East Norwalk, Greens Farms, stations that would barely be used, and add Greenwich or Rye?

Amtrak using a SLE trainset for Shuttle 464 today due to the free weekend. Anyone ever seen them do that before?

And they're only using ONE door to board on 464. There are over 1000 people at Hartford waiting to board and we've been sitting here for about 15 minutes now.

Very smart. 1,000 people is double the capacity of an SLE train.

That's why a bunch of people were left behind.....we were stopped at Windsor for a good 20 minutes too. 55 late at Windsor Locks.

My instincts tell me -as they have on and off for years- that this line could be more successful than CDOT might realize and the numbers today alone only reinforce that. The Hartford Line FB page says that as of 7:00 this evening 6,300(!!!) people took the train today; wouldn't be surprised if that number went up to 6,500 or more. And no doubt most of those were free rides taken on CTrail trains, not Amtrak. And on top of that folks who were being interviewed on the local news seemed to roughly say the same thing: "We've been waiting for this for a long time". If SLE can carry 2,000 or so riders per weekday just from serving the relatively quiet not-as-populated shoreline then this should have no problem getting 3,000. You have New Haven, Meriden, Hartford, and Springfield all on the same line. That's not nothing by any means.


How many cars can the rebuilt Geeps haul in the event the trains need to be lengthened? I remember during OpSail 2000 there were almost exclusively 5-car trains with 1 engine pulling and pushing. The fireworks trains for SailFest 2011 and 2015(?) featured 8-car consists with a loco at each end.


And for that matter could there be any spare Amfleets for the Shuttle trains if riders (perhaps almost certainly will) tend to prefer riding in the more comfy Amfleets vs the MBBs?

checkthedoorlight wrote:That's why a bunch of people were left behind.....we were stopped at Windsor for a good 20 minutes too. 55 late at Windsor Locks.

The lengthy stop was due to some difficulty the crew had helping a disabled passenger get off the train -- without using the lift for some reason.

checkthedoorlight wrote:And they're only using ONE door to board on 464. There are over 1000 people at Hartford waiting to board and we've been sitting here for about 15 minutes now.

I boarded AMTK 464 today in Hartford. The train was a set of CTDOT Shore Line East equipment with an Amtrak crew. I would say that they were between 300 and 400 people on the platform waiting for a train when 464 pulled in. They boarded from the rear of the 1st coach and the rear of the 3rd coach. The second coach had no AC and was very hot so the AMTK crew would not allow people to sit in it. At some point during boarding the crew decided that the first coach was full and they wouldn't allow additional passengers to board. Some walked back to the open door on the 3rd coach and some were left behind on the platform. A CTDOT rep announced that anyone who wished to ride Peter Pan to Springfield could do so today using their free CTrail ticket.

The problem today was simple, the Amtrak 400 series trains, with their 2 coaches, did not have near enough open seating for the crowds that showed up to board -- in particular in the northbound direction.

Train60 wrote:

checkthedoorlight wrote:That's why a bunch of people were left behind.....we were stopped at Windsor for a good 20 minutes too. 55 late at Windsor Locks.

The lengthy stop was due to some difficulty the crew had helping a disabled passenger get off the train -- without using the lift for some reason.

From what one of the conductors said it sounded like it was an extra large wheel chair that the lift couldn't handle.

NH2060 wrote:And no doubt most of those were free rides taken on CTrail trains, not Amtrak.

The Amtrak operated trains that operated mid day were packed to the brim too but obviously the two car Shuttles can only handle so many people. As mentioned before they used an SLE trainset to increase the size of 464 (and this trainset also ran as Shuttle train 467 back down to New Haven.) Amtrak also reportedly ran an extra unscheduled train south from Springfield using a regular Shuttle set somewhere around 2 PM to help with the crowds. The big 140 regional train probably helped out a bit in the evening. It sounded like they are going to use SLE rolling stock again tomorrow.

Amtrak and CTDOT should be keeping a close eye on the ridership once it really gets going this coming week. If the line grows to become really popular they may need to do something with the Shuttle sets.

Let's see what happens as time passes. Free rides is always a nice draw, but it's the long term that will show how popular the service will be.

Exactly. This is a weekend, Father's Day no less, and free rides, so of course plenty of people. Very sincerely doubt they see this type of ridership on any other day in the near, or distant, future.

A good promo would be "discount ride Saturdays" where fares are slightly lower on CTrail trains during select Saturdays, maybe 8$ to 6$, and that would probably bring onboard more customers. This wouldn't be feasible unless more people took the train during those weekends. But, we saw how free rides worked out (6,300 people and still more trains later in the evening) so maybe discount rides could bring out an extra 1,000 people.

I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to AMTRAK because I was one of the ones with my brother on the Extra that they ran from Springfield. We were late getting into Springfield at the 12:17 scheduled time on train 460 as it was standing room all the way from New Haven and the stops took us extra time. So to get our return train back we needed to be in before 12:40 for the return train 463. Well we all tried to get off after we arrived at about 12:35ish but it was slow go and therefore 463 had to leave without us and besides, they had standing room only. So we were then going to have to wait until 5:29 to come back for free or board the Vermonter 57 and pay a fee and it also wasn't stopping at all stops like mine at Windsor.

Here is the great part on AMTRAK. They took the shuttle we came in on, called up an engineer and the crew took us back as an extra around 2:00. This was a great gesture on AMTRAK, they didn't have to do this, no money was to be made but they did it anyways and diverted a really bad thing into a wonderful thing. I just want AMTRAK personnel up in Springfield and on this extra train know we appreciate what they did.

This service will be a wonderful thing for these two states and it will grow with this type of service that they provided. It is obvious, AMTRAK wants CT Rail to succeed as this was CT RAIL day and not AMTRAKS.

Gov. Malloy: Free Travel Weekend on Hartford Line Rail Service Attracts Over 10,300 Train Riders on First Day
https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Gov ... Over-10300

Will be interesting to see what other equipment they deploy today to handle the expected crowds, besides Datco and Peter Pan buses.