Regional New England Rail (Amtrak & State DOT & NEC)

Back in my mid-spent youth, devouring railroad books at the local public library, I seem to recall the tale that the NYNH&H was trying to assemble the ROW for an improved main line in the early 20th Century. However, the post-WWII decline led them to sell portions of it to CT for I-95. Given my inability to rediscover the reference, I assume it’s urban legend, but I would appreciate confirmation by one of the more knowledgeable folks here.
 
Back in my mid-spent youth, devouring railroad books at the local public library, I seem to recall the tale that the NYNH&H was trying to assemble the ROW for an improved main line in the early 20th Century. However, the post-WWII decline led them to sell portions of it to CT for I-95. Given my inability to rediscover the reference, I assume it’s urban legend, but I would appreciate confirmation by one of the more knowledgeable folks here.

Oh, they absolutely had plans to continue electrification straight to Boston, quad-track the Shoreline, and implement modern-to-this-day cab signaling across the whole works. The company Board of Directors authorized the project, but the Depression thwarted those plans from being enacted. NYNH&H made a lot of foolish side investments outside their core biz in the Roaring Twenties during the market bubble, including launching proxy wars to try to buy itself a trolley interurban monopoly in Southern New England a mere handful of years before that whole mode of transit went completely splat. So they got wiped out harder in the '29 market crash than nearly any other RR and first hit the skids in bankruptcy by 1935...many years earlier than the Pennsy and NY Central systems they were eventually merged into. Part of the restructuring plan involved finishing the NEC expansion job while restructuring out less-profitable assets...but then WWII hit, the feds nationalized the RR network, they had to hold onto all their money-losing branches (albeit with generous fed assistance), and there wasn't enough domestic labor around to kick off any major capital improvements projects. Postwar the feds abruptly withdrew wartime control (huge mistake...they should've "pulled a Conrail" + split off public-ized passenger services right then and there in 1950 instead of waiting 20 more years of decline for the Penn Central disaster to force the issue). That immediately sent all the Eastern RR's into a tailspin they never recovered from, with a second stint in bankruptcy tabling all of the New Haven's grand plans on the Corridor. Though they never, to the very end, gave up on Boston electrication as an overarching goal.

The New Haven fared better than most of their contemporaries at staunching the bleeding of passenger counts by aggressively renewing their rolling stock, and started to simplify their once crazy-complicated NEC schedulebook (full of short-turns, named trains, and train-number transfer matching for plotting even dirt-simple trips) into the way more intuitive commuter local, commuter express, intercity local, first-class tiers that have more or less stuck to this day. So New Haven Line trips sustained and in some segments improved their margins during that era...but it was all for naught because the company was still suffocated by hundreds of miles of cost-bleeding branchlines and bankruptcy slowing their ability to petition the feds to get rid of the baggage. By their last decade lineside physical plant was already well into deferred maint mode, ready for the bottom to completely fall out during the Penn Central ownership era.

So chalk their thwarted electrification/expansion timetable up to a lot of rotten-luck timing vs. world events, an excess of pre-Crash stock buying stupidity that put them under more duress...earlier...than their counterparts when the market party was over, and the same two decades of policy malaise that left the RR's and fed RR policy utterly unable to evolve until the Penn Central bankruptcy shocked the system.


UConn Library, BTW, has hundreds of thousands of pages of scanned NYNH&H company records stored online. Some of them detail these electrification and Shoreline capacity plans, and some of the most useful stuff on there is the huge cache of property valuation slides for literally every parcel across the Corridor and most of the Southern New England branchlines. It's often more useful to search those old property files than current public records because they're so extremely detailed. Fortunately/unfortunately it's such an overwhelming document dump searching it can be a real chore if you don't know precisely what you're looking for. The "good finds" often come via word-of-mouth online from individual people who managed to stumble on something neat in there rather than search having pinpoint accuracy.
 
F-Line, thanks for the detailed response. It’s very helpful.
 
Downeaster gets some fed fun bux for congestion mitigation upgrades. . .

Will add a second platform + up-and-over ped access to Wells Station. And extends what's currently a 2-mile stretch of double-track passing siding through Wells Station south by 4 miles to span the distance to the next siding in North Berwick, for a total of approx. 7 miles of DT. Eliminates one of the bigger sources of freight interference delays north of the MA state line, and preps the Western Route for adding the 6th DE round-trip in the next 18 months.
 
Do I read the schedule right? Today a DE 683 calls on Wells northbound at 2:53p and then DE 686 calls on Wells Southbound at 2:59p? Basically they both need to be at Wells' single platform at the same time. And again at 6:48p Northbound 685 nearly-meets Southbound 688 (calling at Wells at 6:55).
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The pixelated loco stripe and door surround are a big improvement now that they have been painted on as planned
 
The pixelated loco stripe and door surround are a big improvement now that they have been painted on as planned
That's the second completed set heading east to (Wilmington?) for static testing at Amtrak inside the yard. First semi-painted set is at USDOT test track in Pueblo doing running tests.

Third set I believe is also ready to move. Think that one's also going east for static/computer testing. None of them are certified for road testing yet, so only way you can get a glimpse is by getting lucky from a train passing Wilmington Shops if they just so happen to park it in a visible part of the yard.
 
Its pretty cool seeing an Alstom hsr train in the US. It just looks legit, whether speed/service really improves much or not, that look is associated with HSR trains.

I honestly liked this better though with the black stripe over the windows.
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Regardless though the new one does look good. Especially the red stripe at the bottom in the video above, it looks slick. Also in that video interestingly the thin red stripe carries on between both sets of trains old and new, pretty cool.
 
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Its pretty cool seeing an Alstom hsr train in the US. It just looks legit, whether speed/service really improves much or not, that look is associated with HSR trains.

I honestly liked this better though with the black stripe over the windows.
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Regardless though the new one does look good. Especially the red stripe at the bottom in the video above, it looks slick. Also in that video interestingly the thin red stripe carries on between both sets of trains old and new, pretty cool.

I do also!!
 
Acela's are (supposedly) canceled, Regionals down to 40% of normal service levels. Amtrak's page no longer seems to have the cancellation notice for Acela, though.


 
Acela's are (supposedly) canceled, Regionals down to 40% of normal service levels. Amtrak's page no longer seems to have the cancellation notice for Acela, though.



I don't know if that's the entirety of the story behind the Acela cancellations. Amtrak employees mentioned online over a week ago that 4 of the 20 Acela sets have been pulled from service and sent to the Bear, DE repair facility. Now, normally Wilmington, DE is home shop for the Acelas and electric locos. Bear is located 5 miles off the NEC on a diesel-only branchline that requires a switcher to shove any all-electric equipment down there, so it's usually not done with anything pantograph-equipped unless it's got major body surgery to undergo. Besides relieving Wilmington of some duties on Amfleet coaches that can be hauled by diesel, Bear is mainly a wreck repair shop, heavy components refurb center, and boneyard for wrecked or retired equipment awaiting dispersal. If any Acela sets are making visits there, it has to be because something is so very wrong with them they aren't going to leave anytime soon. Wilmington would've parted out the sets and reassembled the best power car and carriage remainders into something that could go back on the road quickly. These 4 sent to Bear clearly aren't going to be parted out and slapped back...whatever repair they're in for is major and long-term.

Which immediately begs the question of just how many ailing sets are in the remaining 16. This same veteran employee on RR.net who's usually impeccable on his stuff says the sets are increasingly being band-aided on the day-to-day in increasing deferred (major) maintenance so AMTK can try to get through the next year before the Aveilas arrive skirting the contractual triggers that automatically bring in the Bombardier techs as part of that tortured Service & Support agreement that's made blood enemies out of both sides. BBD is currently playing a game of legal chicken on the retired HHP-8 locomotives stored in Bear, saying that because the lease isn't over on them Amtrak has been illegally stripping them of parts to feed the (similar-design) Acela power cars. This is forcing AMTK to go to inane lengths to repair a bunch of locos that will never be used by anyone on the face of the earth ever again (because they are lemons with capital 'L') to keep itself from wasting more money seeing the whole thing blow up in court. The Acelas get sucked straight into that same toxic contractual vortex...hence the keep-away tactics with Bombardier. It's clearly not working if a quarter of the A1 sets are now mothballed and a powerful odor is wafting out of Wilmington on the sudden "temporary" sidelining of all the others while NE Regionals keep chugging along without nearly as-drastic a service shorting. The last thing they need right now is another battle front to open in the war with Bombardier, but that may indeed be the case. The A1's are aging in dog years, and it's very likely they've uncovered something fleet-wide that needs immediate fix...so entanglements ahoy.
 
Upon leaving the verdant hills yesterday, Amtrak's Vermonter unofficially became the New Havener owing to the suspension of its service north of NHV.
 
L.A.-Vegas HSR...Take XVII...secures a wad of new private financing in a latest/greatest bid to un-vaporware itself:


This latest incarnation of XpressWest is now owned by Virgin Trains USA (co-owners of Florida Brightline) and sourced by certifiable train nut Richard Branson's backing unlike the previous cash-poor incarnations, so it stands a somewhat better chance of "breaking the third dimension" than the rotating cast of tilting-at-windmills outfits who tried this before them. If still not exactly what any rational observer would call 'good' odds. Certainly their 2023 service target is laughable by any measure since it's only sitting north of 30% design; that timeframe shouldn't be taken as any more than a typically Branson-esque over-the-top PR stunt. But a few more cash dumps and some favorable regulatory luck (see glacial-but-breathing "progress" on Texas Central for how much time chew gets lost solely in FRA approvals, nevermind the mountain of other paperwork that takes forever) and 2033 might look aggressive-but-realistic. They already secured tax-exempt construction bonds in California for the tie-in @ Palmdale with CAHSR Operating Segment 1 (the part that's still shovels-in-ground proceeding after Gavin Newsom axed the rest). Being mostly empty desert ROW along I-15 with few mountain passes (CAHSR Phase I does all the brutal work crossing the Sierra Nevada) it should be an effective test for cost-management and whether public-private enterprise can tighten the bolts on slovenly U.S. construction costs.

Unlike Brightline which is glomming onto one of the country's most heavily used freight corridors with fast diesel service, XpressWest is expected to be all-electric from Day 1. Though Virgin could conceivably stock it with diesel Brightline trainsets for a 'soft' opening until a completed south end of CAHSR gives it an effective hook for Phase II'ing the electrification. Direct service to Los Angeles is still contingent on electrifying Metrolink's commuter main to Riverside and a commuter-outlying portion of the Amtrak Southwest Chief route for the slow-speed last connection, which CAHSR will 'mongrel'-upgrade for high speeds at some TBD point after Phase I is complete. A completed XpressWest ROW is also thought to be a vector for restoration of the Amtrak Desert Wind L.A.-Vegas-Salt Lake City-Chicago route, chopped during the 1997 bloodbath of Clinton Admin. LD train cuts. The DW has consistently ranked Top 5 on defunct/suspended Amtrak routes most desireable for restoration.
 
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Wiould this be a good time to take one Hudson River tube out of service maybe over a weekend to do some interim repairs?
 
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More new paint job porn. . .

Amtrak releases mock-ups for the ongoing national order of Siemens Charger diesel locos: http://www.highspeed-rail.org/Docum.../Amtrak Procurement presentation NGEC (1).pdf. (Also some Acela II interior mock-up shots in the same presentation).

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This is different from the delivered statie Chargers and their custom Midwest , Cali, and WSDOT/Cascades paint jobs. This is what you'll see pulling long-distance trains, Virginia and Springfield NE Regionals post- engine switch, the Downeaster, and Pennsylvanian post- engine switch...any purely national routes or statie routes that source power from purely national equipment bases. The NY/VT Empire Corridor pool of dual-mode replacement locos (expected to bid later this year) is the only other statie equipment base expected to get its own custom paint like the others.


I dunno...that's a lot of blue. I'm not sure how I feel about that, since it's hard to picture any Amtrak stock in memory that trades in primary dark colors. Usually the locos have always gone heavy on the silver body to match the stainless steel coach fleets.

These are the paints the current Genesis fleets sport. From L-R . . .
  • Phase I (original 1972 SDP40F "bloody nose"): P42DC Heritage unit.
  • Phase II (1974 GE E60 and Amfleet "fat stripe"): P32AC-DM dual-mode Heritage unit.
  • Phase III (1976-present, "thin-stripe"): P40DC Veterans' Memorial Heritage unit. Scheme is elsewhere found on new Viewliner II's and some Amfleet/Superliner repaints. Veterans' unit does a different take from the original '91 P40DC Genesis Phase III delivery scheme by doing black nose instead of silver nose.
  • Phase IV (1993, original P42DC Genesis scheme) P42DC Heritage unit. Original delivery scheme for bulk of Genesis order, though the once-silver nose looks like it got some dark grey treatment.
  • Phase V (2000-present) generic Genesis scheme. All diesels except for the 4 above Heritage units painted this way (all Genesis P40DC, P42DC, P32AC-DM units + all spot revenue Dash 8's now mostly relegated to work duty + most work trains). Midwest Siemens Charger statie units and Siemens Sprinter electrics use derived variants of Phase V. (Note: no locos have ever been done up in Phase VI, the current blue-dominated stripe scheme on most Amfleet, Viewliner I, and Superliner coaches)

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Phase III is the general consensus hands-down best one they ever had, which is why it's lasted 44 years and is making a comeback with the new Viewliners. I've seen the Vets' Heritage P40 with the black nose leading the Lake Shore Ltd. and it is sharp as fuck in real-life...absolutely one of the best-looking pieces of equipment to ever fly the AMTK flag. The black nose and nose/roofaccents, seen most often on the electric Sprinters are definite keepers any which way. Logo and number placement is equally prominent as the Sprinters...like. But I really don't know about all that blue. Silvery Phase V has worn so well over the years it looks good even when caked up in dirt and bug splatter. Either a faithful miming like the Sprinters or a 'speckled' adaptation like the Midwest Charger would've been eminently safe. And failing that, anything in Phase III stripes looks great by default and meshes effortlessly with whatever is behind it. So I'm not sure that overdose of navy contrast is going to look so hot pulling a bunch of silver stainless steel coaches...but I'll allow myself to be impressed by a real-life pilot unit.
 
With this be a good time to take one Hudson River tube out of service maybe over a weekend to do some interim repairs?

Theyve taken one tunnel out of service every single weekend since Sandy to do repairs.

8 years, no end in sight, no progress reports, and no accountability.
 
With this be a good time to take one Hudson River tube out of service maybe over a weekend to do some interim repairs?

Everybody keeps saying to do things like this. "Why not front-load a bunch of Pike Realignment project stuff" and blah blah blah. But these are megaprojects with huge number of moving parts, and some of those moving parts are considerably more paralyzed by COVID-19 than others so where does the coordination come from to whole-hog expedite things? Yeah, Amtrak can do some overdue night track work right now by lengthening its overnight shift...but that's only spot repair work already on a schedule for some month of this year or already on this week's overnight schedule slate and just potentially packable into expanded night hours. Being in perpetual-motion repairs is the only reason anything whatsoever would be moveable around the calendar at all. But the full-on gutting/rebuilding of the North River tubes that was supposed to come 3-years-per-tube after Gateway came online hasn't even been prelim designed yet, or funded for design...because the fucking Feds are still playing chicken with Gateway funding in the first place. Congress isn't taking up any nonessential business right now so you've got no revenue streams to pay a design firm to get even the first rehab design doodles started, few design firms are fully-staffed right now, and Amtrak itself is not fully staffed because the records dept. that would have handy all the last several decades' of inspection reports on every itty-bitty last thing that's wrong with the tubes is furloughed as nonessential. Where's the starting point when those are the default conditions???


I'll say it again in another thread: this is NOT an "opportunity" for disruptively innovating construction schedules. Only the deadest-simple stuff with materials pre-existing onhand like regularly scheduled night trackwork or roadwork has any ability to be stacked n' packed right now. If third-party contractors or any supply chain involved, there's 95% likelihood that at least one of the involved third parties has one hand tied behind its back on staffing just like the rest of the world. And the rest of the basic project-coordination management universe of desk jockeys tasked with triaging anything remotely complicated between multiple parties has basically been sent home as nonessential. Not to mention fat chance of proceeding with anything that needs as prerequisite for "shovel-ready" any outstanding permit applications to be signed by some local, state, or federal authority whose offices are long closed and who are only handling emergency filings from their virtual-remote perches for foreseeable future. The across-board logistics aren't close to aligning for getting "spare-time" project starts. You're seeing that in the real world...more grab-n'-go DOT stuff like lane closures for always-running pavement work because there's no bureaucracy to square to reshuffle that deck, largely self-contained projects not overly dependent on outside materials deliveries continuing uninterrupted, and almost everything else either stopping or significantly slowing because the virus outruns the reach of all possible triaging creativity with supply chains. Expect more of exactly the same during this interregnum, no matter whose project it is.
 
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