Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England

[JeffDowntown]

OMNY is u

To be fare, the real pathway is walk to station -> see sign for SMART APP -> download app -> open app and create account (and maybe an email verification) -> figure out where you're going and what the fare is -> load enough money to make trip -> tap.

Oh shoot and now you've missed your train.

Coming from NYC where OMNY makes the pathway is just "Tap Credit Card" with only one fare, I was a lot of steps for a first time user.

OMNI is undoubtedly easier. (Except for the trick of setting up "transit pay" on your phone so you don't need to try to unlock the phone at the gate.)

But many of us using the DC Metro download the SMART App and load funds (or a pass) before walking to the station.

 

[KCasiglio]

CT dollars boost Shore Line East rail service in continued pandemic recovery

There are new peak-time trains for Shore Line East commuter rail as part of Connecticut’s effort to build back service since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

www.ctpublic.org

Shore Line East hasn’t been running at its full former strength for years at this point, but one of the two new round-trips they’ve restored includes peak service to/from Stamford — the first time since before the pandemic they’ve offered that one-seat connection. (Although it could have been a lot worse, since at least there were always timed SLE—>MNRR transfers at New Haven.)

It will be interesting to see how ridership responds to these extra trips. SLE is stuck in a vicious cycle. CT has been obstinate about restoring frequencies on SLE until ridership grows (the usual chicken-and-egg problem), so this is a rare window of opportunity to show the extra investment in extra trips will yield results that merit further investment.

Relevant: https://portal.ct.gov/dot/-/media/d...0276bb8&hash=85E9F12E9EB50FCBD9A8FE1BFC97139D

 

[ulrichomega]

Relevant: https://portal.ct.gov/dot/-/media/d...0276bb8&hash=85E9F12E9EB50FCBD9A8FE1BFC97139D

Be the Shore Line East
Propose leaving the shoreline and heading inland
Shaking my head

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Be the Shore Line East
Propose leaving the shoreline and heading inland
Shaking my head

It's alright. The costs for the inland sojourn are thoroughly sandbagged. They made Westerly look like a bargain compared to Norwich...$243M vs. $635M, and more ridership to Westerly to boot.

 

[riptide]

It's alright. The costs for the inland sojourn are thoroughly sandbagged. They made Westerly look like a bargain compared to Norwich...$243M vs. $635M, and more ridership to Westerly to boot.

The cost sandbagging is largely due to an assumption that the Palmer Line would be upgraded to Class 4 standards. They openly acknowledged in Appendix A that they have no way of substantiating that assumption…they didn’t confirm whether you’d even have enough clear stretches of 80mph running (given the track geometry and stop spacing) to warrant that level of investment vs Class 3. They didn’t even factor acceleration/deceleration into their travel time projections.

That being said, Appendix D documents the Palmer Line’s capital needs, and there are plenty of ‘em. Personally I don’t doubt a Norwich extension would have higher capital costs than a Westerly extension — both options require three new stations to be built, but the NEC doesn’t need the sort of ROW work the Palmer Line apparently does.

As far as ridership projections, if you’re looking at the table on p.63 of the final report that @KCasiglio linked, it’s not an apples to apples comparison. “SLE Extension” means 24 total trips (12 round-trips) between New Haven and Westerly; “Palmer Line” means 18 total trips (15 Norwich-New London shuttle trips with 3 Norwich-New Haven trips thrown in for good measure). The 12 round trips from New Haven to Norwich option would have yielded almost exactly the same projected ridership as extending all to Westerly, but they found the best way to balance demand on both corridors was to send most SLE trips to Westerly and offer most Norwich trips as a shuttle. Appendix J has the details.

Lots of weirdness with that study, but I think it bumbled towards the right prioritization. The on-NEC extension has less moving parts, and the million dollar bill sitting on the ground that nobody seems to have noticed is the unprecedented hiring growth of Electric Boat…and the extreme parking challenges EB faces/creates in Groton. Plenty of their employees wake up before 5am just to show up early enough to get an on-site parking spot — and then sleep in their cars until it’s time to work. That sort of detail can’t be captured in standard trip generation formulas, but it exists, and for a line like SLE that needs any ridership it can get, that’s the best prospect for untapped potential it’s ever going to find.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

The cost sandbagging is largely due to an assumption that the Palmer Line would be upgraded to Class 4 standards. They openly acknowledged in Appendix A that they have no way of substantiating that assumption…they didn’t confirm whether you’d even have enough clear stretches of 80mph running (given the track geometry and stop spacing) to warrant that level of investment vs Class 3. They didn’t even factor acceleration/deceleration into their travel time projections.

That being said, Appendix D documents the Palmer Line’s capital needs, and there are plenty of ‘em. Personally I don’t doubt a Norwich extension would have higher capital costs than a Westerly extension — both options require three new stations to be built, but the NEC doesn’t need the sort of ROW work the Palmer Line apparently does.

As far as ridership projections, if you’re looking at the table on p.63 of the final report that @KCasiglio linked, it’s not an apples to apples comparison. “SLE Extension” means 24 total trips (12 round-trips) between New Haven and Westerly; “Palmer Line” means 18 total trips (15 Norwich-New London shuttle trips with 3 Norwich-New Haven trips thrown in for good measure). The 12 round trips from New Haven to Norwich option would have yielded almost exactly the same projected ridership as extending all to Westerly, but they found the best way to balance demand on both corridors was to send most SLE trips to Westerly and offer most Norwich trips as a shuttle. Appendix J has the details.

Lots of weirdness with that study, but I think it bumbled towards the right prioritization. The on-NEC extension has less moving parts, and the million dollar bill sitting on the ground that nobody seems to have noticed is the unprecedented hiring growth of Electric Boat…and the extreme parking challenges EB faces/creates in Groton. Plenty of their employees wake up before 5am just to show up early enough to get an on-site parking spot — and then sleep in their cars until it’s time to work. That sort of detail can’t be captured in standard trip generation formulas, but it exists, and for a line like SLE that needs any ridership it can get, that’s the best prospect for untapped potential it’s ever going to find.

NECR's mainline is already Class 3. And most of the rail and ties just got replaced in a big state-paid grant project to uprate the loading weight to Port of New London, so it's maximally good-condition Class 3 track. With almost entirely up-to-spec gated grade crossings, so not much needed there either. ConnDOT would have to pay for a signal system and probably a couple passing sidings to sustain that kind of schedule, and it's a freight clearance route so any full-high platforms would need to have passing tracks or gauntlets...but it's not a lot of actual running-track upgrades if the curvature doesn't allow them to shoot for Class 4 speeds. The study definitely leaned hard into it being a very expensive job when the reality isn't necessarily so.

 

[KCasiglio]

My pessimism about ridership on the Palmer ride stems from the station siting. I know there's nothing really to be done about the Norwich station...but it's not a great site. The transportation center is already hardly used and is in a really awful area for walking/biking. The area MAY get better (I swear this study was finished but I can't find the final document, check out the downtown concepts) but it also may not and has a LONG way to go. Then there's the Mohegan Sun station. A train to MS sounds awesome. A train to a parking lot kind of near MS that then requires a shuttle ride is less exciting when I can just take a bus directly to the door (SEAT and the intercity buses).

Meanwhile I think Groton has a lot of TOD potential and a municipal staff that's really on board with such as well as the EB issue mentioned above, Mystic has a baffling proposal to move the station east of the existing station/all the development but in general has proven demand, Stonington is probably a loser because of borough obstinance (they will fight to the death to prevent that station), and downtown Westerly is a better anchor than Norwich.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

My pessimism about ridership on the Palmer ride stems from the station siting. I know there's nothing really to be done about the Norwich station...but it's not a great site. The transportation center is already hardly used and is in a really awful area for walking/biking. The area MAY get better (I swear this study was finished but I can't find the final document, check out the downtown concepts) but it also may not and has a LONG way to go. Then there's the Mohegan Sun station. A train to MS sounds awesome. A train to a parking lot kind of near MS that then requires a shuttle ride is less exciting when I can just take a bus directly to the door (SEAT and the intercity buses).

Meanwhile I think Groton has a lot of TOD potential and a municipal staff that's really on board with such as well as the EB issue mentioned above, Mystic has a baffling proposal to move the station east of the existing station/all the development but in general has proven demand, Stonington is probably a loser because of borough obstinance (they will fight to the death to prevent that station), and downtown Westerly is a better anchor than Norwich.

Mystic pretty much has to move. The platforms are on a sharp curve, and M8 EMU's can't board at any full-highs with curvature because their quarter-point doors will open up a pronounced 'gap'. There's pretty much no place to move the station and keep it centered on Broadway Ave. Ext. because the curve is a big, long one abutting the moveable bridge...so the only practical way to accommodate is to move it a few blocks east. Plus if the station weren't there you could think about eliminating the grade crossing.

 

[RandomWalk]

A few blocks east is well outside of the downtown area. What about west, near School St and the post office? Either way, the coastline doesn’t play fair with the rail line for station sites.

 

[riptide]

A few blocks east is well outside of the downtown area. What about west, near School St and the post office? Either way, the coastline doesn’t play fair with the rail line for station sites.

West wouldn’t get you any closer to downtown Mystic. If the station has to move (and it almost certainly does, as F-Line said), Appendix I of the ECRTS discussed (on p.32) how you make the most out of the situation: by establishing a new local bus route that functions as a shuttle, extending from the station, past downtown and the Seaport, up to 95.

That idea has been floating around for at least a decade; this Southeast Area Transit District study from 2015 sketched out the route and pointed out that Mystic already has the employment density to justify frequent transit service. It was too resource-intensive to provide high frequency service on SEAT’s old, longer-haul routes, but a short, shuttle-length route makes the value proposition pan out.

Once the station moves east, a last-mile connection will be absolutely necessary, and this shuttle route is the answer. But truth be told, Mystic’s summer tourism traffic is so severe at this point that they need a shuttle with or without commuter rail in the picture.

 

[riptide]

My pessimism about ridership on the Palmer ride stems from the station siting. I know there's nothing really to be done about the Norwich station...but it's not a great site. The transportation center is already hardly used and is in a really awful area for walking/biking. The area MAY get better (I swear this study was finished but I can't find the final document, check out the downtown concepts) but it also may not and has a LONG way to go. Then there's the Mohegan Sun station. A train to MS sounds awesome. A train to a parking lot kind of near MS that then requires a shuttle ride is less exciting when I can just take a bus directly to the door (SEAT and the intercity buses).

Meanwhile I think Groton has a lot of TOD potential and a municipal staff that's really on board with such as well as the EB issue mentioned above, Mystic has a baffling proposal to move the station east of the existing station/all the development but in general has proven demand, Stonington is probably a loser because of borough obstinance (they will fight to the death to prevent that station), and downtown Westerly is a better anchor than Norwich.

Even if the locals did want it, Stonington Borough would probably be the weakest station on the whole line. For reference, it’s only about 1/3 the size of Niantic, which had been a proposed infill stop for a while…until CDOT’s feasibility study found its ridership projections were too poor to merit further pursuit. (Among other reasons.) Frankly, I think the main reason they included a Stonington station is because the enabling legislation that funded the ECRTS told them to. Wouldn’t be surprised if it gets pruned later.

A key selling point for Westerly as SLE’s outer anchor is that it has room for a layover yard. That would be huge for their operational (and fiscal) efficiency compared to current practices, i.e. deadheading all the way back to New Haven.

 

[KCasiglio]

Frankly, I think the main reason they included a Stonington station is because the enabling legislation that funded the ECRTS told them to. Wouldn’t be surprised if it gets pruned later.

It's entirely the reason. Residents were very vocal at the time about "why are you even studying this, we don't want it" to which the authors replied with exactly what you said. I was working at SECCOG for the majority of the time this study was going on. Groton (both city and town) are practically begging for a station. The Town of Stonington is very supportive as well of a station *somewhere* in town. The borough is vehemently against it being there. Danielle Chesebrough casually talked about a station behind the high school or at Lord's Point but they're both park-ride oriented and probably as dead in the water as the borough.

A few blocks east is well outside of the downtown area. What about west, near School St and the post office? Either way, the coastline doesn’t play fair with the rail line for station sites.

The coastline certainly doesn't "play fair" - but really the bigger issue is that we're dealing with legacy development and track. Greenfield development of this would be fine, skip the stupid dip into Noank and you'd have a nice straight track that would again skip useless (today) dips into Lord's Point and Stonington Borough.

Mystic pretty much has to move. The platforms are on a sharp curve, and M8 EMU's can't board at any full-highs with curvature because their quarter-point doors will open up a pronounced 'gap'. There's pretty much no place to move the station and keep it centered on Broadway Ave. Ext. because the curve is a big, long one abutting the moveable bridge...so the only practical way to accommodate is to move it a few blocks east. Plus if the station weren't there you could think about eliminating the grade crossing.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the reasons why. My issue is more that this is an obvious hang up. So while it's pretty universally understood that better rail service to Mystic would be highly desirable, it's also coming under the condition that no sacrifices can be made to get it (other than sacrifices by those taking the train and likely shuttle to Mystic). There's a short spur at Mystic that pulls up behind Mystic Stainless and Aluminum. It would involve relocating the firehouse and existing station building, but it seems to me that the spur could be used for a straight enough segment for a Mystic Station. Perhaps I'm being naive and the cost blowout isn't worth the extra proximity, but the best part of Mystic is already the Groton side far enough away from the existing station. It's incredibly rare that these opportunities come about and settling for a two seat ride just feels so....why are we even here?

 

[Stlin]

Mystic pretty much has to move. The platforms are on a sharp curve, and M8 EMU's can't board at any full-highs with curvature because their quarter-point doors will open up a pronounced 'gap'. There's pretty much no place to move the station and keep it centered on Broadway Ave. Ext. because the curve is a big, long one abutting the moveable bridge...so the only practical way to accommodate is to move it a few blocks east. Plus if the station weren't there you could think about eliminating the grade crossing.

I have two questions: The M8s currently originate at New London, which is also on a fairly sharp curve. I am admittedly eyeballing it, but Mystic seems comparable? Even if it isn't, Is this one of those cases where a platform side solution like movable gap fillers can actually make sense?

 

[riptide]

I have two questions: The M8s currently originate at New London, which is also on a fairly sharp curve. I am admittedly eyeballing it, but Mystic seems comparable? Even if it isn't, Is this one of those cases where a platform side solution like movable gap fillers can actually make sense?

New London’s on a slightly sharper curve (8 degrees vs 6 degrees, if memory serves), but Mystic has to contend with both curvature and superelevation. That adds more engineering complexity.

New London doesn’t rely on movable gap fillers, which are vulnerable to mechanical issues — instead it uses a bridge plate. The train pulls up, a single door opens, a conductor leaps over the gap, unlocks the bridge plate that’s chained to the platform, puts it in place, and then passengers can board. Restricting boarding to a single door is not ideal, but for now, the issue can sort of hide behind the fact that A) ridership isn’t very high and B) trains will be laying over in New London for a few minutes anyway since it’s the current terminus. You’d really start to notice the excessive dwell times once New London is no longer the endpoint and higher frequencies drive more ridership. Not the sort of situation you’d want to voluntarily introduce at a new station.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the reasons why. My issue is more that this is an obvious hang up. So while it's pretty universally understood that better rail service to Mystic would be highly desirable, it's also coming under the condition that no sacrifices can be made to get it (other than sacrifices by those taking the train and likely shuttle to Mystic). There's a short spur at Mystic that pulls up behind Mystic Stainless and Aluminum. It would involve relocating the firehouse and existing station building, but it seems to me that the spur could be used for a straight enough segment for a Mystic Station. Perhaps I'm being naive and the cost blowout isn't worth the extra proximity, but the best part of Mystic is already the Groton side far enough away from the existing station. It's incredibly rare that these opportunities come about and settling for a two seat ride just feels so....why are we even here?

To put platforms behind Mystic Stainless, you need that nearby segment of tangent track to extend further northeast. That necessarily means the western end of the Broadway Ave curve would get pushed further east, which necessarily means the curve gets sharpened. Once you sharpen the curve, you introduce a stricter speed restriction than what exists today, and any train that isn’t stopping in Mystic — namely all Acelas and the majority of Regionals — gets hit with a new speed penalty. Amtrak doesn’t make their money off Mystic’s 30k/year ridership. In this part of the northeast, travel between the major cities what drives revenue. From a business standpoint, Amtrak has no incentive to spend tens of millions to modify its own ROW geometry in a way that ultimately reduces the competitiveness of rail as an alternative to driving or flying between other key northeastern markets. If it’s Mystic ridership vs. the whole northeast’s ridership, it’s fairer to ask Mystic to be the one to make sacrifices.

And as you said, there’s also the cost of property acquisition. Add up all those costs and then weigh it against the fact that you’re putting the platforms only 700 feet closer to downtown. Mystic Station is already at the outer edge of a normal walkshed from downtown: it’s a 1/2 mile away from the drawbridge, about a 10-minute walk. Mystic Stainless is only a minute closer.

I understand the instinct of not wanting to move it even further away, but Mystic is an excellent candidate for a local bus line, as the studies I mentioned before have already recommended. As long as you provide timed transfers at the station, it’s really not much of a step down compared to the current situation. And with no existing commuter rail service, you aren’t worsening the experience of any existing riders.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I have two questions: The M8s currently originate at New London, which is also on a fairly sharp curve. I am admittedly eyeballing it, but Mystic seems comparable? Even if it isn't, Is this one of those cases where a platform side solution like movable gap fillers can actually make sense?

M8's board at a little 2-car one-track high south of the rest of the station along South Water St. that was constructed because the curved full-high across from the station building had too much curvature for the quarter-point doors. It's a fugly temporary band-aid until the state comes up with a workable permanent solution for the station. The mini has almost no curve to it. As that was the literal only lineside thing keeping the EMU's from coming online, they dealt with it cheaply. They've been studying permanent solutions for eons, but no full station treatment plan has come forward yet.

Mystic has no such straight sections within 1000 ft. of Broadway Ave. Ext., and the ROW doesn't straighten out until you're abutting the bookending cove bridges, which is very access-inconvenient and leaves very little room for platforms before the bridges.