Railroad Forums
Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman
asull85 wrote:Track speeds will officially be changed by Saturday morning. MAS in a couple locations will be 100mph or greater.Further details (for the public) on this CTDOT link.
ryanov wrote:It’s not true that most of the NEC is sub-100, is it?Nearly all of the NEC is CT is sub-100.
ryanov wrote:It’s not true that most of the NEC is sub-100, is it?It may be that on average the NEC is sub-100 (and I live near the likely reason why that average is down). But I'd think it's mostly super-100 between DC and NYC.
lordsigma12345 wrote:I don't get Amtrak's deal with trains 451 and 412 during the week? Why would they not sell a direct connection to the Acela trains that the hartford line is advertising that they connect to (and that it seems they have been timed to meet.)My long-standing suspicion has been that the lack of ticketed Acela connections is due to the lack of business class on the shuttles. Amtrak may not want to give an Acela passenger a downgrade in service level from their premium service. At least that was my perception when I used to frequently ride to Hartford ~8 years ago.
ryanov wrote:I wasn’t speaking average speed, but it is kind of a complicated question. For example, even in NJ where NJTransit can run at 100, the whole thing isn’t 100. But really, it’s only the Metro-North section that’s max 90 for the whole length, right?90mph is only for a few miles near Mamaroneck...most of the line is under 70 due to the number of curves. I believe two tracks are still out in the vicinity of Stratford for catenary replacement as well, so capacity is limited anyway regardless of maximum speed.
Kilgore Trout wrote: My long-standing suspicion has been that the lack of ticketed Acela connections is due to the lack of business class on the shuttles. Amtrak may not want to give an Acela passenger a downgrade in service level from their premium service. At least that was my perception when I used to frequently ride to Hartford ~8 years ago.You can get a custom ticketed connection from an Acela to a Shuttle through a station agent. However because they don't have 451 and 412 as official connections in the computer system then the normal Amtrak one hour connection rule applies. This means that 451/2151 (which would be a perfect connection, 20 minute or so layover in NHV) can't be sold. So for example in the case of 451 you can book a custom connection through an agent to a LATER Acela but not 2151. Sure you can get around this by not booking your Shuttle with your Acela ticket and buying a seperate ticket for 451 (or a CTrail ticket and ride 451 with that) but if 451 is late and you miss 2151 they most likely wont accomodate you. An agent was able to book me a northbound trip on 2172/478 but not 2172/412 (412 has far less layover and the one CTDOT is advertising.) Coming north its less of an issue because starting June 16 NHV-SPG becomes totally flat with no buckets matching CTrail and rumor has it both Amtrak and CTRail tickets will be totally transferrable between trains as long as its the same day. So on my travel day if my 2172 gets to NHV on time I should be able to board 412 penalty free with my 478 ticket (or at the worst have to call Amtrak 1-800 and change to 412 for free.) Bigger issue is going south, IE train 451. The layover is probably long enough where 90% of the time you'd be fine, but still a risk.
