You do realize how much of a pain it is to cross over east bounds for the Devon transfer right? Also, it is easier for crew/equipment swaps done at Bridgeport station verses how it is now.
naugatroll wrote:It was/is the logic.Jeff Smith wrote:ISo it seems Barnum would almost be a replacement Devon.Wasn't the logic on a permanent Devon transfer to keep the Waterbury branch on the branch, since main line slots to run to Bridgeport are at a premium? Making the transfer at Barnum doesn't exactly eliminate that herdle.
Though I wonder if saying that slots are at a premium is a simpler way of saying: "The real problem is that once the Waterbury shuttle gets to Bridgeport it has to park and change ends/switch tracks in a less than ideal spot making the task of adding additional frequencies difficult and having a different arrangement for turning shuttle runs would open up more frequency opportunities". MNR has added so much extra service on more heavily traveled stretches of ROW in the past 5 years that fitting in more Waterbury trains in the actual slots can't alone be the problem. Service between Bridgeport and Devon Jct. is about/less than half of what it is west of Stamford with the same number of tracks.
Perhaps CDOT saw that trying to do Devon Jct. and Barnum Ave. and any other stations that might be under consideration would be too much $$$ for same amount of gain. Therefore reconfiguring Barnum as a "mini Stamford" type station to allow WTBY runs to terminate, etc. while still allowing plenty of room for extra frequencies would save big bucks on the cost of building a Devon Jct. station. Let's face it building two stations for say $xx Million to $xxx Million with one of them only used a transfer stop for a lower ridership branchline doesn't exactly make sense from a financial standpoint.
One way they could accomodate the WTBY is to create a dead end "pocket track" of sorts in the middle of the ROW with its own platform similar to what Iarnrod Eireann did for some of the commuter rail stations as part of the Kildare 4-tracking project as seen from above here @ the Hazelhatch & Celbridge station:
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