Passenger rail within New York state (Buffalo, Rochester: car rental, rentals, transfer)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The current situation is that there's about a dozen trains a day each way that serve the route from NYC to Albany with about half of those continuing on to Schenectady before two of those runs split north towards Vermont / Montreal leaving four to go on to Buffalo after which one goes to Toronto, one goes to Chicago, and the last two to Niagara falls. The schedule for trips not geared towards New York City generally are somewhat limited when it comes to frequency (four trips a day for much of the stretch) and the times they serve (for example, if you were going from Syracuse to Buffalo, the earliest trip you can take is just after noon at 12:43 PM).
There's a pilot project that Massachusetts will try this summer which will extend a trip from NYC to Pittsfield, MA via Albany along rails that the Empire Service runs as well as what the Lake Shore Limited service (Boston-Chicago edition) runs.
The around just west of Schenectady station has a lot of rail lines that cross over each other or are in close vicinity to each other, so it's probably feasible to make trains that approach or depart from the west of Schenectady's station "facing" either direction.
With all this mind, what are some maybe attainable improvements you think can be made especially with respect to outside the New York City metropolitan area? This isn't with a massive addition of track or electrification, but essentially just using what is currently there and maybe with a modest speed increase. Tracks and right-of-way and the like are usually the big investments whereas running trains and rolling stock are relatively small investments so it wouldn't take that much starting capital to actually run more trains down parts of the stretch.
Additionally, newer FRA rules allow for far lighter rolling stock than ever before which means that lighter and easier to accelerate models from Europe and elsewhere can be used so it's less fuel cost and somewhat better acceleration which is what might account for a modest speed increase. There's also less track wear, but who knows where that cost gets pushed into.
Passenger trains should ideally run on dedicated high speed electrified tracks with frequent service like in Europe. Unfortunately that will never happen here.
The Amtrak trains between Albany and NYC are usually quite full. Not uncommon for some of the scheduled trips to be sold out. Part of the reason, especially on weekends, are the stops in Rhinebeck and Hudson. Brings a lot of weekenders up to the Hudson Valley. When we don't want the hassle of driving down and dealing with parking in Manhattan we'll take the train from Hudson.
Interested to see what kind of interest they get for a link to Pittsfield?? That town in itself doesn't have much appeal IMO, but the proximity to other Berkshire towns may be useful for some.
Too bad there's no link between Albany and Boston. Can't tell you how many kids we've known that went to school in the Central Mass area around Amherst and into Boston.
I know of one improvement we would love. The Hudson stop which is the 3rd busiest Amtrak station in NY has a ground level platform and a vintage station. Boarding and unboarding require the conductor to step off and place stools on the ground for passengers. It's a pain if you're carrying luggage or packages. Also no fun if you're older or have knee problems.
"According to Amtrak, New York State ridership on all its various lines totaled almost 1.7 million passengers from October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Since 1995, Empire service ridership over the period has increased 30 percent. Ridership has been particularly strong in the Albany-New York City corridor, and in 2017-2018 totaled almost 1.2 million passengers."
So that means that the Albany-Buffalo stretch gets a half million or so and that's with fairly limited runs at somewhat inconvenient times.
Passenger trains should ideally run on dedicated high speed electrified tracks with frequent service like in Europe. Unfortunately that will never happen here.
That could be ideal, but the cities upstate might not be large or dense enough for that kind of spending unless there's something figured out with the border crossing to Toronto.
Germany actually runs a very successful blended system with local, express, and freight together and the US could potentially learn from that.
"According to Amtrak, New York State ridership on all its various lines totaled almost 1.7 million passengers from October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Since 1995, Empire service ridership over the period has increased 30 percent. Ridership has been particularly strong in the Albany-New York City corridor, and in 2017-2018 totaled almost 1.2 million passengers."
So that means that the Albany-Buffalo stretch gets a half million or so and that's with fairly limited runs at somewhat inconvenient times.
Given that data, times in terms of increased frequency would be nice.
The guy that runs this blog(shout out to him) has written articles about using the train to visit cities within that second stretch: https://theurbanphoenix.com/tag/amtrak/
The Amtrak trains between Albany and NYC are usually quite full. Not uncommon for some of the scheduled trips to be sold out. Part of the reason, especially on weekends, are the stops in Rhinebeck and Hudson. Brings a lot of weekenders up to the Hudson Valley. When we don't want the hassle of driving down and dealing with parking in Manhattan we'll take the train from Hudson.
Interested to see what kind of interest they get for a link to Pittsfield?? That town in itself doesn't have much appeal IMO, but the proximity to other Berkshire towns may be useful for some.
Too bad there's no link between Albany and Boston. Can't tell you how many kids we've known that went to school in the Central Mass area around Amherst and into Boston.
I know of one improvement we would love. The Hudson stop which is the 3rd busiest Amtrak station in NY has a ground level platform and a vintage station. Boarding and unboarding require the conductor to step off and place stools on the ground for passengers. It's a pain if you're carrying luggage or packages. Also no fun if you're older or have knee problems.
Yea, we found out about Amtrak trains being sold out on my first time trying to get on a train. I figured I'd just waltz into Penn Station and get a ticket for the next train. Nope! Had to wait quite a bit for the next available seat.
That Pittsfield thing is interesting. On one hand, it's a great jumping off point to the Berkshires, but are they going to run shuttles or car rentals once you get there?
There is a link between Albany and Boston and that's the Lake Shore Limited (the trains starts as two with one part in NYC and another in Boston before being coupled), but it's solely once a day and meant to serve Bostonians headed out rather than others headed in. MA's considering running trains from Boston out to Springfield and potentially Pittsfield as well. If they're going to do that, it seems like it'd be a waste to stop at Pittsfield rather than continue on to at least Albany both in terms of connections to other trains and because Albany is actually a pretty sizable city for that greater region.
The biggest thing with Albany to me is that there's no actual station within Albany on Albany's side of the river. The first couple miles of track after the train crosses the bridge into Albany seems to have the space and straight enough path for a station that would be within easy bus distance and even doable walking distance to downtown Albany. It seems absurd to not have that station.
Given that data, times in terms of increased frequency would be nice.
The guy that runs this blog(shout out to him) has written articles about using the train to visit cities within that second stretch: https://theurbanphoenix.com/tag/amtrak/
So what are some proposed ways to increase that frequency?
One of the most direct options is extending out one of the NYC-Albany stretches to not terminate in Albany but instead go all the way to Wester NY. I think the big thing is that there's no westbound morning departure for any of the Western and Central NY cities which means no going from Syracuse to Rochester or Buffalo in the morning. The Albany to Buffalo stretch takes about 5 and a half hours as is and the only workable westbound train that is remotely workable for stretching to meet that morning trip from Central NY to Western NY is the late night train departing from NYC at 10:45 pm on weekdays and 11:35 on weekends. If that's the one that's extended, then it'd be about a 6:45 am arrival Tues-Sat and 7:35 am arrival Sun-Mon to Buffalo which means that Rochester gets a pretty damn early 5:38 am Tues-Sat and 6:28 am Sun-Mon westbound departure. That split time and really early train is maybe doable, but not ideal.
If we're keeping with the idea of a NYC-Buffalo train that has morning westbound hours for Central NY and Western NY, then a daily very late run from NYC can potentially work. A night out in NYC can end pretty late so it can still serve double duty for the NYC-Albany stretch. NYC to Buffalo is about an eight hour ride, so if it's a run at around 2 am or so, then you've got a maybe more workable 10 am arrival in Buffalo.
Obviously, shorter times for the trip would be better. The new FRA rules for rolling stock means you can get a bit more acceleration with less heavy rolling stock and existing diesel/electric hybrids give a bit better acceleration and might obviate the need the ten to seventeen minute to change locomotives in Albany. So without more expensive trackwork and further electrification, there can be maybe a half hour or maybe slightly more in time savings. Express trains skipping some stops can also increase speed, but that can be contentious and without a bunch of passing sidings, the scheduling between local and express service might be a bit tricky.
The other potential additional frequency for Albany-Buffalo or some subset of that would be to eschew going to NYC and down the Hudson Valley completely. You might still want a large anchor city and Boston is potentially a secondary anchor as the tracks from Albany to Pittsfield actually run to the south of the Albany–Rensselaer station so there wouldn't be a need to turn the train around.
There may be other potential routes and maybe something more limited to just Western and Central NY, though the question is if there's a good place to do a turnaround and already has the tracks available for that. There's a mass of rail lines crossing each other just west of Schenectady over land that's not densely built or built at all which seems like it'd be possible to do there so that trains can switch tracks west of Schenectady to enter the station from either direction. That might be a good place for either an eastern end of an upstate service (bonus in that Schenectady gets more trains headed to Albany and NYC than points west of it so transfers might be reasonable) or potentially even a Western NY to Vermont or Montreal run.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-13-2019 at 11:26 AM..
So what are some proposed ways to increase that frequency?
One of the most direct options is extending out one of the NYC-Albany stretches to not terminate in Albany but instead go all the way to Wester NY. I think the big thing is that there's no westbound morning departure for any of the Western and Central NY cities which means no going from Syracuse to Rochester or Buffalo in the morning. The Albany to Buffalo stretch takes about 5 and a half hours as is and the only workable westbound train that is remotely workable for stretching to meet that morning trip from Central NY to Western NY is the late night train departing from NYC at 10:45 pm on weekdays and 11:35 on weekends. If that's the one that's extended, then it'd be about a 6:45 am arrival Tues-Sat and 7:35 am arrival Sun-Mon to Buffalo which means that Rochester gets a pretty damn early 5:38 am Tues-Sat and 6:28 am Sun-Mon westbound departure. That split time and really early train is maybe doable, but not ideal.
If we're keeping with the idea of a NYC-Buffalo train that has morning westbound hours for Central NY and Western NY, then a daily very late run from NYC can potentially work. A night out in NYC can end pretty late so it can still serve double duty for the NYC-Albany stretch. NYC to Buffalo is about an eight hour ride, so if it's a run at around 2 am or so, then you've got a maybe more workable 10 am arrival in Buffalo.
Obviously, shorter times for the trip would be better. The new FRA rules for rolling stock means you can get a bit more acceleration with less heavy rolling stock and existing diesel/electric hybrids give a bit better acceleration and might obviate the need the ten to seventeen minute to change locomotives in Albany. So without more expensive trackwork and further electrification, there can be maybe a half hour or maybe slightly more in time savings. Express trains skipping some stops can also increase speed, but that can be contentious and without a bunch of passing sidings, the scheduling between local and express service might be a bit tricky.
The other potential additional frequency for Albany-Buffalo or some subset of that would be to eschew going to NYC and down the Hudson Valley completely. You might still want a large anchor city and Boston is potentially a secondary anchor as the tracks from Albany to Pittsfield actually run to the south of the Albany–Rensselaer station so there wouldn't be a need to turn the train around.
There may be other potential routes and maybe something more limited to just Western and Central NY, though the question is if there's a good place to do a turnaround and already has the tracks available for that. There's a mass of rail lines crossing each other just west of Schenectady over land that's not densely built or built at all which seems like it'd be possible to do there so that trains can switch tracks west of Schenectady to enter the station from either direction. That might be a good place for either an eastern end of an upstate service (bonus in that Schenectady gets more trains headed to Albany and NYC than points west of it so transfers might be reasonable) or potentially even a Western NY to Vermont or Montreal run.
The part of the post that I bolded was what I was thinking of, but agree that it may need to be adjusted in terms of a "reasonable" time around Rochester.
You do have a line that runs up to Montreal via the Adirondack Service and you actually see TV ads for via Spectrum News. so, for people in CNY/WNY, you would have to go to Albany, then go north from there. https://www.amtrak.com/adirondack-train
A potential limited WNY/CNY route could be something perhaps more Niagara Falls and/or eastern Adirondacks(thinking really Old Forge) based. You have this scenic railroad from Utica to Thendara/Old Forge that could be turned into a more viable (at least seasonal) route: Utica Station | Adirondack Scenic Railroad
So, it could be nice to have the option of taking the train to either one of those tourist attractions or at least more marketing going into illustrating how one could take the train to these places.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
