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The metro Boston economic engine that subsidizes the rest of the state is choking to death from failed transportation infrastructure. The money needs to be spent making it so metro Boston workers can actually get to work. It would be insane to redirect those very scarce resources so somebody can get to a casino in Springfield. Boston-Albany is a nonsense city pair to invest billions in rail infrastructure. The only way Springfield makes sense is if it's on a new 200+ mph high speed rail route to NYC that bypasses the pathetic Connecticut rail infrastructure along Long Island Sound. That's not commuter rail.
I agree with you that putting billions in rail infrastructure for a Boston-Albany city pair is nonsense, but there's little reason why this should take billions of dollars. There's an existing service, the Lake Shore Limited, that already has Boston-Albany as part of its service so the tracks already exist as do the stations. I'd assume that any initial Boston-Albany service with Springfield in between would most likely use the same tracks and stations either in its entirety or at least for significant portions of it. What would then need to happen is probably the addition of double tracking or sidings at parts, perhaps some track work to speed up portions of it and purchasing rolling stock. That doesn't seem like it'd cost, even with the US's ridiculous infrastructure costs, multiple billions of dollar and is unlikely to need even a single billion dollars. Albany is a decent-sized metropolitan area at this point and Pittsfield probably does need a bit of a boost with Springfield now being a fairly decent transfer station. The only thing is the path of the existing track from Pittsfield to Albany is really winding and Albany doesn't have a stop in Albany proper.
Agreed on 200+ mph high speed rail on an inland route routing through either Springfield or Hartford, though I reckon that there's not enough frequency demand for that to be worth it unless there was multiple services on it with express / local service where most of the route is only double-tracked, though at some of the "local" stations, they become four tracked with express tracks in the middle bypassing local service. The Long Island Sound route should be only commuter and regional rail as keeping things clear for faster trains actually takes up quite a bit of capacity.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 09-20-2019 at 01:50 PM..
...and you don't have the population or population densities to support regular rail service.
But it doesn't matter regardless because it's 8-8.5 hours (assuming the border crossing doesn't delay you) from Springfield to Montreal via train, plus however long it would take you to get to Springfield first. So even if you have a nonstop Maglev train that goes 300mph and gets you to Springfield from Boston in about 25 minutes, you still have to ride the painfully slow Amtrak train from Springfield to Montreal for 8.5+ hours. Who would do that when they can fly for about the same price (often less), drive it in 5-6 hours, or take a cheap bus that takes 7 hours. It's a moot point. Montreal from Boston via Springfield is not a thing that anyone is going to do so it's not worthy of discussion.
Huh? Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester all already have multiple daily non-stop flights to Boston on multiple airlines. As far as +/-100mph rail service goes, what data is out there that indicates that there is any demand for it? Unless there's any information that clearly indicates there are enough potential passengers between Albany and Boston to justify a multi-billion dollar rail investment, then the LSL and existing buses will continue to do fine. For the farther flung cities, the flights are fine.
I’ve taken busses up and down that stretch of road and from Buffalo to Boston they are basically at 100% capacity with east/west departures happening as often as 30 minutes apart. Not all busses stop at all stops so there is a lot of Bus Traffic. As well as auto traffic. If the train was as fast as driving people would take the train. A 100-125mph train would beat driving. Now once you get beyond like 2 people driving will almost always be cheaper but a $75-80 round trip Buff-Boston and like $25 Springfield to Boston would be competitive.
Also ever been to a Sabres game at Key Bank? It’s 33% Bruins fans at least. So clearly there is a lot of travel between the cities.
Also having gone to school in WNY I basically never met anyone who had never been to Boston from Upstate NY.
I’ve taken busses up and down that stretch of road and from Buffalo to Boston they are basically at 100% capacity with east/west departures happening as often as 30 minutes apart. Not all busses stop at all stops so there is a lot of Bus Traffic. As well as auto traffic. If the train was as fast as driving people would take the train. A 100-125mph train would beat driving. Now once you get beyond like 2 people driving will almost always be cheaper but a $75-80 round trip Buff-Boston and like $25 Springfield to Boston would be competitive.
Also ever been to a Sabres game at Key Bank? It’s 33% Bruins fans at least. So clearly there is a lot of travel between the cities.
Also having gone to school in WNY I basically never met anyone who had never been to Boston from Upstate NY.
I've done the bus to Albany a few times - meeting people to go to Saratoga. There were empty seats each time. I've also flown a few times - I did Boston-Buffalo on Delta on Labor Day weekend and neither direction was a full flight. The fare was also $95 round trip. There's no rail service that can compete with that.
Western NY does have major ties to Boston, I agree. My old roommate is from Buffalo. My girlfriend went to school in the area and I'm blown away by the almunmi network she has here in the city. But my point is that unless there's actual data that highlights enough demand to sustain regular service, it doesn't make sense from a financial standpoint. And even if there IS enough data, does Boston-WNY make sense over other city pairs? I don't think so.
...and you don't have the population or population densities to support regular rail service.
But it doesn't matter regardless because it's 8-8.5 hours (assuming the border crossing doesn't delay you) from Springfield to Montreal via train, plus however long it would take you to get to Springfield first. So even if you have a nonstop Maglev train that goes 300mph and gets you to Springfield from Boston in about 25 minutes, you still have to ride the painfully slow Amtrak train from Springfield to Montreal for 8.5+ hours. Who would do that when they can fly for about the same price (often less), drive it in 5-6 hours, or take a cheap bus that takes 7 hours. It's a moot point. Montreal from Boston via Springfield is not a thing that anyone is going to do so it's not worthy of discussion.
Huh? Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester all already have multiple daily non-stop flights to Boston on multiple airlines. As far as +/-100mph rail service goes, what data is out there that indicates that there is any demand for it? Unless there's any information that clearly indicates there are enough potential passengers between Albany and Boston to justify a multi-billion dollar rail investment, then the LSL and existing buses will continue to do fine. For the farther flung cities, the flights are fine.
If there was a higher speed train from Boston to Albany, then there would be a pretty decent business case for having the leg to Montreal go via Albany as the bulk of travelers would be those riding NYC-Montreal rather than investment in higher speed rail going from Springfield to Montreal.
I think the Albany to Pittsfield stretch is probably too much at this point given how it winds and actually veers pretty far southwards before going back up north. A new set of tracks with a much more straight line route probably makes most sense in order to make it at least comparable to car travel as the winding path that route takes means that you'd have parts where you'd frequently have to slow down and a lot more track miles to maintain. However, I don't think there's a good case for doing this over funding other state infrastructure projects. A Boston to Pittsfield route via Worcester and Springfield does make sense though as that's not quite as long and meandering and it also wouldn't require having to work over state lines. Springfield is also a decent transfer station with the Hartford Line and Valley Flyer.
New York state, which has entered the conversation, should probably focus on getting its route from NYC to Niagara Falls (and Toronto, to boot) fixed up first along with its Montreal line. If that's successful and the core population of the cities on that route along with the Worcester to Pittsfield route start increasing, then it makes sense to invest in a better route from Pittsfield to Albany.
Anyhow, topic on hand, anyone give this a shot yet? If going through Springfield, any idea for why there's a 12 minute difference between arrival and departure times?
you have to remember a few things here first the ability to take a train versus a car versus a plane varies on a number of factors. if I were to fly to the Midwest to visit some relatives of mine I would pay more than taking a flight to Orlando. The reason why is Orlando can attract more people naturally do to Disney World vs some ball of twine in the Midwest. Having said that there can be areas where it does take a while to drive but there's really no way to fly. About a year-and-a-half ago I went to Niagara Falls. I drove there. The reason why I drove there is because a flight is not possible out of Bradley and I would have had to drive to Boston get on the plane and then when I come back drive from Boston back to Springfield. That amount of time going back and then forward is hours that I could spend drive so it made more sense to just drive. At the same point though the issue with cars is that you're still subject to what is in front of you. Trains have a right-of-way that cars and buses do not have.
What this is really about is connecting Springfield to Worcester. Worcester to Boston is already well established. In many respects what can also happened is in the area benefits being just in the middle of it. For example for Valley flyer provides some more opportunities that did not already happen. Springfield gains by having more connections now.
The road conditions between Springfield and Worcester are bottleneck which has ramifications throughout the region. This is not about going from Springfield to Boston. By connecting Springfield to Worcester would open up quite a bit throughout the region. People would be able to go from Hartford to Boston faster than going Hartford to Boston via New Haven people would be able to go from New Haven to Hartford people would be able to go from Worcester to New York City potentially faster than going through Boston.
Vermont pays for the vermonter line that goes through Springfield for the South CT rail Hayes from Springfield going down to New Haven. Perhaps New York could pay for something going from New York Eastwood perhaps from Albany to Worcester. The access to healthcare alone could make this interesting. If someone were to get on a train in Albany and go to Springfield are the only be about 90 minutes if the track was good and then from there Bay State is literally a mile away which a shuttle could easily take. I'm not putting Albany down by any means but you got access to the third largest hospital system in Massachusetts just sitting here. Albany to New York City is easily three hours by car. So for medical care alone this could be a reason to get it further out there.
It's increasingly clear to me that what I object to about the Valley Flyer is not the need, or lack of need, for train service, or the views of the posters here. It's that it's not really to provide public transportation service for the benefit of the Pioneer Valley. It's a cynical ploy, a misnomer, for adding more Boston to New York City/Northeast Corridor service. Holding out the vague hope of a limited benefit to Greenfield, Amherst, Northampton, and the Pioneer Valley provides cover and justification for what they really intend. Valley Flyer translates into - fly through the Pioneer Valley as fast as possible to get the big shots to New York.
If Governor Baker and the State House really wanted to open up the Pioneer Valley economically and improve access to Boston's culture, economy, and the State offices they don't need decades of plans and billions of dollars on a train service. What we need here is MBTA bus service, a public bus service like every town in the eastern part of the state has, that runs in a circular route from the eastern part of the state to the western part of the state - making us a unified Commonwealth, not a divided east or west, two "states" with competing interests.
It's my understanding that a state-of-the-art bus costs about $90,000. With a half a dozen buses, a half a dozen bus drivers and training for the drivers, the total cost of a public transportation service for the Pioneer Valley should cost something like a million and a half dollars to start up and become largely self-sustaining like the bus and subway services in Newburyport, Lexington, Brookline, wherever.
But why would it even have to be self-sustaining or profitable? Public transportation is a governmental service for the public good, as part of the commons.
The bus service that we have now from Western Massachusetts into Boston is a private company and a private monopoly. It seems obvious to me there are powerful players in politics in Massachusetts whose self interested objective is to protect that private monopoly at the expense of providing public transportation to the citizens of the Pioneer Valley.
It's increasingly clear to me that what I object to about the Valley Flyer is not the need, or lack of need, for train service, or the views of the posters here. It's that it's not really to provide public transportation service for the benefit of the Pioneer Valley. It's a cynical ploy, a misnomer, for adding more Boston to New York City/Northeast Corridor service. Holding out the vague hope of a limited benefit to Greenfield, Amherst, Northampton, and the Pioneer Valley provides cover and justification for what they really intend. Valley Flyer translates into - fly through the Pioneer Valley as fast as possible to get the big shots to New York.
If Governor Baker and the State House really wanted to open up the Pioneer Valley economically and improve access to Boston's culture, economy, and the State offices they don't need decades of plans and billions of dollars on a train service. What we need here is MBTA bus service, a public bus service like every town in the eastern part of the state has, that runs in a circular route from the eastern part of the state to the western part of the state - making us a unified Commonwealth, not a divided east or west, two "states" with competing interests.
It's my understanding that a state-of-the-art bus costs about $90,000. With a half a dozen buses, a half a dozen bus drivers and training for the drivers, the total cost of a public transportation service for the Pioneer Valley should cost something like a million and a half dollars to start up and become largely self-sustaining like the bus and subway services in Newburyport, Lexington, Brookline, wherever.
But why would it even have to be self-sustaining or profitable? Public transportation is a governmental service for the public good, as part of the commons.
The bus service that we have now from Western Massachusetts into Boston is a private company and a private monopoly. It seems obvious to me there are powerful players in politics in Massachusetts whose self interested objective is to protect that private monopoly at the expense of providing public transportation to the citizens of the Pioneer Valley.
You are mistaken if you think every town in eastern Massachusetts has a public bus service because most towns don't.
Just to put this out there in response to several posts; the old Boston and Albany ROW (which merged into New York Cenral, then Penn-Central railroads), is now mostly CSX freight owned. Amtrak has rights to run some trains (such as Lakeshore Limited), and MBTA owns east of Worchester, but that is the extent of things.
No freight RR in this country is going to fork up money for anything remotely like HSR or even faster passenger train service. If Amtrak wants to restore or whatever double/four tracks in areas between Albany and Boston that is their business (it won't ever happen), but CSX won't likely bother.
Here is a map of old B&A mainline ROW between Albany and Boston:
You can see there are many twists and curves which would limit "high speed" rail. What cannot be told from map but never less exist are some very steep grades. This would also limit speed.
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