Amtrak Downeaster Discussion Thread

highgreen215 wrote:While this may be a bit off topic, can someone tell me about getting a taxi at North Station after my wife and I arrive on the Downeaster. As North Station is nowhere near as busy with long distance rail travel as South Station, I never noticed a clearly marked cab stand with taxis waiting at North Station. We are senior citizens and don't relish the idea of waiting very long for a cab after dark on a windblown street. Any suggestions or comments on how to get a cab quickly there for a trip to a Boston suburb?

I'm thinking what you may want to do is to go on line and look up a few Boston cab companies and see if they service North Station. Then save the number(s) in your cell phone to call them about 15 minutes before the train is to arrive. I'm a tad surprised to hear that you haven't seen taxis waiting there as I believe the Station also serves MBTA and has a T stop there as well. And isn't the arena for the Bruins and Celtics adjacent to the station???

According to reply #5 on this TripAdvisor discussion, North Station has a taxi stand on Causeway Street in front of the station.

By the way... with the new Downeaster extension to Brunswick, I wrote the Maine Eastern to inquire if they would be coordinating their schedules to permit connections to/from Amtrak trains at Brunswick from/to ME trains from/to Rockland.

Gordon Page from ME replied back to me;

"Thank you for your inquiry.
At this time, it appears that the Amtrak schedule in and out of
Brunswick will be dissimilar to the Maine Eastern Railroad schedule. We
should have a better sense of both schedules in the spring.

---

Thanks.
GVP
Always expect a train!

MAINE EASTERN RAILROAD
Gordon V. Page, Sr.
Vice President, Director of Passenger Operations
4 Union Street
Rockland, ME 04841
[email protected]
207.596.6770
www.maineeasternrailroad.com "

Cowford wrote:The DE certainly didn't hurt, but...

Freeport receives over 3.5 million visitors annually. That's nearly 10,000 folks per day, on average (and we're talking about an above average time of year). The train brought in 27 per day in November, and indications are, fewer in December. And (1) Some of those folks were locals; (2) It can safely be assumed that a portion of those riders would have driven anyway. In rough numbers, the incremental traffic attributable to the DE was, say, 10-20 people daily max.

0.1-0.2%? Inconsequential.

Aha! I knew there was a reason why I went to see some arrivals in person. Distribution was probably not even across the days. Weekends were regularly in the 50s, many of which were likely shoppers. In short it appears that traffic may have been overwhelmingly retail oriented. Tough to say for sure at the moment.

gokeefe wrote:

Cowford wrote:The DE certainly didn't hurt, but...

Freeport receives over 3.5 million visitors annually. That's nearly 10,000 folks per day, on average (and we're talking about an above average time of year). The train brought in 27 per day in November, and indications are, fewer in December. And (1) Some of those folks were locals; (2) It can safely be assumed that a portion of those riders would have driven anyway. In rough numbers, the incremental traffic attributable to the DE was, say, 10-20 people daily max.

0.1-0.2%? Inconsequential.

Aha! I knew there was a reason why I went to see some arrivals in person. Distribution was probably not even across the days. Weekends were regularly in the 50s, many of which were likely shoppers. In short it appears that traffic may have been overwhelmingly retail oriented. Tough to say for sure at the moment.

Well, it is after all a brand new service and word of mouth and marketing hasn't had time to spread yet. IF that 10,000 person a day figure is accurate (I wonder what it must be in summer!!), then just 1% would make the 17-mile extension worthwhile. That's 100 people each day getting on and off, or roughly 1.7 A2 coaches. I also presume that tourism to Freeport is way down overall anyway in the months of November and December and that the peak months are May - September.

kmillard wrote:

gokeefe wrote:

Cowford wrote:The DE certainly didn't hurt, but...

Freeport receives over 3.5 million visitors annually. That's nearly 10,000 folks per day, on average (and we're talking about an above average time of year). The train brought in 27 per day in November, and indications are, fewer in December. And (1) Some of those folks were locals; (2) It can safely be assumed that a portion of those riders would have driven anyway. In rough numbers, the incremental traffic attributable to the DE was, say, 10-20 people daily max.

0.1-0.2%? Inconsequential.

Aha! I knew there was a reason why I went to see some arrivals in person. Distribution was probably not even across the days. Weekends were regularly in the 50s, many of which were likely shoppers. In short it appears that traffic may have been overwhelmingly retail oriented. Tough to say for sure at the moment.

Well, it is after all a brand new service and word of mouth and marketing hasn't had time to spread yet. IF that 10,000 person a day figure is accurate (I wonder what it must be in summer!!), then just 1% would make the 17-mile extension worthwhile. That's 100 people each day getting on and off, or roughly 1.7 A2 coaches. I also presume that tourism to Freeport is way down overall anyway in the months of November and December and that the peak months are May - September.

Not quite. November and December are pretty busy but unlike the summer most of the activity is focused on weekends. The real dead season is February - April.

kmillard wrote:Gordon Page from ME replied back to me:
At this time, it appears that the Amtrak schedule in and out of
Brunswick will be dissimilar to the Maine Eastern Railroad schedule. We
should have a better sense of both schedules in the spring.

Nice! I think many of us are hoping that this means they're going to make fuller use of all 3 trainsets across more hours and at least one more r/t to BRK

Arlington wrote:

kmillard wrote:Gordon Page from ME replied back to me:
At this time, it appears that the Amtrak schedule in and out of
Brunswick will be dissimilar to the Maine Eastern Railroad schedule. We
should have a better sense of both schedules in the spring.

Nice! I think many of us are hoping that this means they're going to make fuller use of all 3 trainsets across more hours and at least one more r/t to BRK

That would sync with our understanding that NNEPRA will issue a new schedule once the trackwork in MA is complete.

"...then just 1% would make the 17-mile extension worthwhile. That's 100 people each day getting on and off, or roughly 1.7 A2 coaches..."

Or two buses. Sounds a bit arbitrary. Consider that you have to run three RTs/day.

Arlington and GO'K - how do you derive positive news out of "Amtrak schedule in and out of Brunswick will be dissimilar to the Maine Eastern Railroad schedule..."?

"will be dissimilar" = lousy/no connection this summer, no?

Cowford wrote:Arlington and GO'K - how do you derive positive news out of "Amtrak schedule in and out of Brunswick will be dissimilar to the Maine Eastern Railroad schedule..."?

"will be dissimilar" = lousy/no connection this summer, no?

Note the latter part of the text. I believe he's referring to an expected schedule change in the spring that could adjust some of these problems.

Cowford wrote:"...then just 1% would make the 17-mile extension worthwhile. That's 100 people each day getting on and off, or roughly 1.7 A2 coaches..."

Or two buses. Sounds a bit arbitrary. Consider that you have to run three RTs/day.

Arlington and GO'K - how do you derive positive news out of "Amtrak schedule in and out of Brunswick will be dissimilar to the Maine Eastern Railroad schedule..."?

"will be dissimilar" = lousy/no connection this summer, no?

There is no bus service to Freeport!

gokeefe wrote:

Cowford wrote:Arlington and GO'K - how do you derive positive news out of "Amtrak schedule in and out of Brunswick will be dissimilar to the Maine Eastern Railroad schedule..."?
"will be dissimilar" = lousy/no connection this summer, no?

Note the latter part of the text. I believe he's referring to an expected schedule change in the spring that could adjust some of these problems.

I read the "will be dissimilar" together with the "At this time" that preceded it to mean: "All we can say now is that things are bad now, and if we extrapolate that to summer, it will still be bad--so bad, change can only make them better. The Summer schedule has the possibility of change by the Downeaster, and therefore the possibility of improved connections"
Sounds like he's smart enough not to promise more/changed DE that he's not in control of, but he knows its worth checking back when the Summer Schedule comes out.

"There is no bus service to Freeport!"

As in busload-equivalents

"The Summer schedule has the possibility of change by the Downeaster, and therefore the possibility of improved connections"

Given there's little freight traffic on the line, etc... it's a lot easier for ME to adjust their schedule than it is NNEPRA. And ME already stated that they are reducing service this year. How could NNEPRA adjust their schedule to optimize a ME connection???

Why would Maine Eastern decide NOW to reduce services in light of there being a new rail connection at Brunswick??? The new connection definitely increased the possibility that I'll want to use the ME's service to Rockland and I'm sure other people were giving this more consideration as well.

That would be like reducing the hours of a busy pizzeria in Colorado just as a new marijuana shop is going in next door!!