leviramsey wrote:Traingeek3629 wrote:
P.S. Why is that line so loopy after Palmer? If I had built the line it would have gone through Spencer and Leicester instead of Charlton.
Have you ever driven through there? From Worcester to the East Brookfield Flats along Route 9, it's basically continuous hills.
No, if I am going to Boston I take 95, or 395/84 to 90.
njt/mnrrbuff wrote:A general rule of thumb-lets say if a person lives in a town on a passenger rail route that might have a train station but not many trains stopping there while more trains stop in a larger town on that same line very close by-those people will drive to the larger town for more train service. The line could be dead straight between the station in a smaller and larger town and people will still drive to the larger town. Look at Windsor Ct-there are people who live there who are heading to NYC and when they take the train, they will probably drive instead to Hartford for more service. Even after all of the double track is restored, not every Ctrail train will continue north of Hartford. Now for any Amtrak service running to Greenfield, it might seem like a straight shot but the speeds are slow in many areas along the Knowledge Corridor. I rode the Vermonter three years ago over the Knowledge Corridor and we were crawling in many spots. Hopefully, there will be more speed restrictions lifted along there. I think one of the slowest stretches is between Holyoke and Springfield. If you live around Holyoke, you are probably better off getting the train in SPG. Back to the example of the distance from Charlton to Worcester, it's 15 miles between both cities and probably many people will drive to Worcester to get MBTA when heading to Boston.
Many people on MNR's Hudson Line who live in/closer to Cortlandt drive to Croton-Harmon because there are more trains there, even if most of them are locals. People in Madison (my hometown) drive to NH most of the time rather than taking SLE because there are more trains. Same thing with people in Warwick on the Providence Line, Patterson on the Harlem Line, and Weston on the Green Line/Fitchburg Line. As for speeds on the Knowledge Corridor, it is a reasonable speed now north of Springfield and more upgrades will probably be made. Holyoke's ridership is pitiful, with around 4 people per day. I suspect with two more trains it will likely be about 20 per day. Northampton gets great ridership, with 54 per day, and the new trains could make it around 110 per day.
For the record, Meriden's Vermonter Ridership is only 434 in 2017. Not great. Wallingford had 424, and Berlin had 361. I saw the northbound Vermonter in Meriden once, on a Sunday and 4 people got on going north. Keep in mind, people from Wallingford might drive to Meriden for the Vermonter now, so that may go up.