by Traingeek3629
After nearly a year and a half of significantly reduced schedules due to the impacts of Covid-19, CTrail's Hartford Line and Shore Line East lines will receive massive service improvements.
SLE will not resume a full pre-pandemic schedule, however service will be restored to 12 weekday round trips (against the current 8 and pre-Covid 17) and EVERY train will now go to New London for the first time in SLE history. Since ridership is still well-below pre-covid levels, this seems pretty fair. My only gripe is with some of the listed "connections" - as an example, #1627 has a 23 minute connection that gets you to GCT at 8:50, when there is both a local and an express train that both arrive in the city about a half hour earlier. Could potentially dissuade riders who don't want a three hour trip into the city, even though it's actually 2.5 hours.
The Hartford Line on the other hand IS going back to a full schedule, and this reflects the returning ridership, higher than any other Connecticut line except for the Waterbury Branch. The four hour midday gap is still there, and the same issue with connections is present (#4466 is a good example), but overall it's pretty much business as usual.
New Haven Line service was improved back in June, and a "new normal" schedule will be implemented in late August, per officials.
SLE will not resume a full pre-pandemic schedule, however service will be restored to 12 weekday round trips (against the current 8 and pre-Covid 17) and EVERY train will now go to New London for the first time in SLE history. Since ridership is still well-below pre-covid levels, this seems pretty fair. My only gripe is with some of the listed "connections" - as an example, #1627 has a 23 minute connection that gets you to GCT at 8:50, when there is both a local and an express train that both arrive in the city about a half hour earlier. Could potentially dissuade riders who don't want a three hour trip into the city, even though it's actually 2.5 hours.
The Hartford Line on the other hand IS going back to a full schedule, and this reflects the returning ridership, higher than any other Connecticut line except for the Waterbury Branch. The four hour midday gap is still there, and the same issue with connections is present (#4466 is a good example), but overall it's pretty much business as usual.
New Haven Line service was improved back in June, and a "new normal" schedule will be implemented in late August, per officials.
TRAIN(geek) APPROACHING, PLEASE REMAIN BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE