CT RAIL Service Begins in Connecticut

Free rides on the 16th and 17th june. Apparantly the trains all had restrooms, but they were not all handicapped accessable, so after a complaint, a moron made the decision to seal them up. "If everyone can't use them nobody will use them."

Those cars look a lot like the oldest Metro-North cars that run with their diesels. Any chance they are related???

The passenger cars may be refurbished Amfleet or Metro-North Horizon cars. The engine is a State of Connecticut BL-20GH low emission diesel which has just been rebuilt. It looks brand new. I believe this new service will be well patronized in Connecticut.

MELGAR

Not a fan of the "cola" paint scheme,  would rather see the New Haven colors.

Good news. My nephew lives in Wallingford and has to drive to New Haven to catch Metro North to his job in NYC.

Wow- new rail service in the Northeast????

It's about time the states got involved and did more than blame the MTA for their problems. I hope it is successful. Every few years New York will prod the LIRR to create north south shuttle lines along some of the major corridors. The whole system was designed to get people in and out of NYC. No thought was ever given to local commuters.
I'm with RJG- a NH paint job would have looked cool.

Service is up and running.  I no longer have to drive to NH to take the train NYC.  Only one problem, no bathrooms for at least a year.   The bathrooms are not handicap compliant and if they can’t use them nobody can, so they are locked until they are modified 

superwarp1 posted:

Service is up and running.  I no longer have to drive to NH to take the train NYC.  Only one problem, no bathrooms for at least a year.   The bathrooms are not handicap compliant and if they can’t use them nobody can, so they are locked until they are modified 

Beautiful! Just beautiful!  Our government and ADA rules run amok.

MELGAR posted:

The passenger cars may be refurbished Amfleet or Metro-North Horizon cars. The engine is a State of Connecticut BL-20GH low emission diesel which has just been rebuilt. It looks brand new. I believe this new service will be well patronized in Connecticut.

MELGAR

The cars are from the MBTA from Boston.  CT spent a fortune rehabbing these cars that the MBTA deemed not worth it which were taken out of service over ten years ago and are over 30 years old.

Hot Water posted:

superwarp1 posted:

Service is up and running.  I no longer have to drive to NH to take the train NYC.  Only one problem, no bathrooms for at least a year.   The bathrooms are not handicap compliant and if they can’t use them nobody can, so they are locked until they are modified 

Beautiful! Just beautiful!  Our government and ADA rules run amok.

Yeah some ADA  advocacy group  threaten to sue so th FRA said lock the bathrooms up until they’re compliant 

Great to see the Hartford line getting some passenger service upgrades.  This line never got the love the shoreline got under Amtrak.  My dad used to ride from Hartford to new haven back in the 60s and said it was quite slow even then. At some point it was also single tracked.  Looks a lot better now.  

As for the bathroom issue, ada laws are no mystery and railroads deal with them when upgrading equipment and rebuilding station all the time. The fact that they couldn’t identify the problem when rebuilding the cars is a big failure on the railroads part.   

Saturday, June 16, 2018 was the first day of public operation for the new CTRail service between New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield. Massachusetts. I rode the 8 AM departure from New Haven which arrived in Springfield around 9:40 AM and returned into New Haven around 11:50 AM. There was no charge to ride today and it will also be free tomorrow. Throngs of people waited at some stations, especially on the return trip. Ridership was light when the train left New Haven but passenger occupancy increased at every stop. When the train arrived back in New Haven, there wasn’t even standing room in any of the cars. I stood during the return trip.

MELGAR

RJG posted:

Not a fan of the "cola" paint scheme,  would rather see the New Haven colors.

I like both livery but prefer NH, especially McGinnis, which I think is one of the very best.

MELGAR posted:

Saturday, June 18, 2018 was the first day of public operation for the new CTRail service between New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield. Massachusetts. I rode the 8 AM departure from New Haven which arrived in Springfield around 9:40 AM and returned into New Haven around 11:50 AM. There was no charge to ride today and it will also be free tomorrow. Throngs of people waited at some stations, especially on the return trip. Ridership was light when the train left New Haven but passenger occupancy increased at every stop. When the train arrived back in New Haven, there wasn’t even standing room in any of the cars. I stood during the return trip.

MELGAR

Bravo, Melgar. Fabulous pictures.

Long term plans are to have the trains go all the way up to Greenfield in 2019.