M8's and Shore Line East

Here's some more screen grabs of the same M8 passing through Guilford at speed last night around midnight.

are regular tests still occurring?

The recent videos suggest that these may also be qualification runs for crew members who will someday operate the M-8s east of New Haven. Could it be that CTDOT plans to put the M8's into revenue service on SLE in early 2021?

Great to see testing at this stage. Hope to see much more footage.

With Covid's impact on peak commutation, CDOT is going to be swimming in M8s for years to come. Therefore CDOT's primary argument for keeping the 60+ new M8s west of New Haven no longer holds water. I hope that further pushes CDOT towards dedicating M8s for local service statewide.

Coaches could play a role in future limited and express services across most lines while the M8 fleet is deployed in this way. Of course, federal funds encouraging railway electrification would be welcome too.

Love to see the M8s breaking out of century-old habits.

By having CDOT run M8s on as many of their Ctrail SLE trains as much as possible, that will help cut down on diesel fumes. I don't think we will see M8s enter revenue service on the Shoreline earlier this year.

There's another batch of M-8's out of Kawasaki's Lincoln Factory beginning to show up,seems like the ACSES on board hardware/software problem has been settled , More M-8's in the fleet now will stall the next gen M-10 design for a while
This will allow the Diesel and coach fleets to solely work the NHV-Springfield service and rid ConnDOT of the MBTA MBB Car lease.

Even when and if M8s start running on the Shoreline, there will likely still be Ctrail diesel trains running there. The track in NLC closest to the Thames isn’t electrified so any Ctrail train heading to NLC would have to be diesel until that track that I mentioned gets wired.

njtmnrrbuff wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:45 pm Even when and if M8s start running on the Shoreline, there will likely still be Ctrail diesel trains running there. The track in NLC closest to the Thames isn’t electrified so any Ctrail train heading to NLC would have to be diesel until that track that I mentioned gets wired.

Are there still regular test runs to New London?

njtmnrrbuff wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:45 pm Even when and if M8s start running on the Shoreline, there will likely still be Ctrail diesel trains running there. The track in NLC closest to the Thames isn’t electrified so any Ctrail train heading to NLC would have to be diesel until that track that I mentioned gets wired.

*facepalm* ahh, U.S. infrastructure never fails to delight.

Is that track even used by passenger service? It doesn't look like it has access to any but two ends of a low level platform. Still though, is wiring a quarter mile of track a big deal?

Yes, Ctrail indeed uses that track closest to the water to layover on so that way, it doesn't interfere with any Amtrak movements using the other two tracks.

At least they got the Guilford and Old Saybrook sidings done.

Do they load from that track in NLC? It seems like a more complicated than necessary move to get there. Anything that terminates at NLC would have to at minimum shove back, maybe to the other side of the Shaw Cover bridge, then pull back next to the station. Though I guess with the Coast Guard restrictions, traffic can't grow enough that this move would really interfere with train movements. Though ideally the train could pull forward into a pocket track, then be able to cross to either track when it comes back out.

How about squeezing in another track to the right of this one? This way, SLE can have two tracks and two platforms (upon construction of a new platform south of the existing one) for better flow of traffic and storage.

Curve cretes gap problems with the M-8's,need to string wire on that track as well ,long construction time in Conn with zero $$$$ to fund it ConnDOT is Broke now.