Adirondack June '23 cancellation, and September restoration, state of Upstate NY service

[jis]

It is clear that neither Amtrak nor DOT are much interested in any service north of Albany if they cannot get to Montreal because even Saratoga Springs does not seem worth their while unless and until it is racing season, July 27th.

I agree. It would not be worth it for just this one route. If NY State was into providing comprehensive rural service in the upstate then the appropriate equipment for it would be a large order of FLIRTs or something like that. It is plain silly to run 4 heavy standard cars which are mostly half occupied and a hugely heavy diesel pulling them. That is about the worst match of equipment to required capacity and level and quality of service.

But since NY State's upstate service is mostly about virtue signaling and not particularly about providing usable quality service, of course getting appropriate equipment for them would be inappropriate. you'd want to run it for least cost using superannuated inappropriate equipment, hand me downs from elsewhere. Coming to think of it, the only real rural service that NY State runs is the Adirondack route. The only other upstate service it runs is on the Water Level Route which no one would characterize as a rural service, and surprisingly they do that poorly too. There has been no service growth West of Albany since its inception - post Amtrak unlike say, California or the Pacific Northwest to some extent.

 

[Amtrak25]

If DOT were really interested in service, they would put down a 2nd track at Syracuse station, once reserved for the stillborn Onondaga RDC shuttle, and run a 5th frequency to there.

DOT has no interest in anything except building stations in Rensselaer, Saratoga, Syracuse, Rochester and downtown Buffalo, and those projects were basically run by the local bus authorities. They are otherwise a bookkeeping service for the dozen trains with a staff of 2 people, much like Erie-Lackawanna existed for years after 1976 with a staff of 3 people to settle claims in Cleveland's Terminal Tower. For them to do anything about track infrastucture in Canada is as likely as doing anything on Mars.

These FLIRT things might be good for a Scranton - Syracuse service if the Lackawanna Cutoff ever happens, but I don't think it will due to another useless DOT - New Jersey's. They 'd turn it into a rail-trail if they could get away with it.

 

[jiml]

FLIRTs are an ideal product for a frequent medium-distance service like those suggested here. That is probably why they won't happen.

 

[fdaley]

In the early '70s, Amtrak was down to five daily round-trips NYC-Albany, three Albany-Syracuse and just two to Rochester and Buffalo. It was New York State that backed expansion of that, plus restoration of service to Montreal and track upgrades to cut a half-hour or more off the running time from New York to Albany. So New York was actually a leader on passenger rail back in the '70s and early '80s. But most of these projects were achieved by early in the Mario Cuomo administration (and conceived in earlier administrations). There has been no real leadership and nothing much beyond maintaining the status quo since then. (The Pataki administration, with Joe Boardman as transportation commissioner, had a much-trumpeted "high-speed rail" program that involved rehabbing the old Turboliners; it wound up as a rather sad joke.) What's happening with the Adirondack raises the question of whether there is even a commitment to maintaining the status quo.

We still have a very good service from New York to Albany and a functional corridor west of there to Buffalo, and the most of the stations have been upgraded in the past couple of decades. But we're long overdue for some vision for how to build upon that system to serve other regions of the state and to provide better links to New England and PA.

 

[Septa9739]

This would require NY to work together with VT in a rare collegiality, but perhaps it would be possible to run the Adirondack to Burlington temporarily. It’s far from ideal, but it would maintain service to the two busiest upstate stations and Burlington would have the capability to overnight a crew (I think, in so far as there is a procedure) and possibly a second train set. Port Kent is accessible by ferry and if I had to do a bus, Burlington is a lot closer than Montreal. Plattsburgh could be served by a van. I’m sure there’s a contractor up there who would take the work. The schedule could actually be pretty good. It would probably generate enough ridership to not be a total mess.

 

[Amtrak25]

The Port Kent ferry is dead, Port Kent and Burlington docks destroyed, and all 3 of its vessels have been cut up. I doubt the Vermont Railway would be willing to yard two trains overnight. It was difficult to get them to do it for one train.

 

[jis]

This would require NY to work together with VT in a rare collegiality, but perhaps it would be possible to run the Adirondack to Burlington temporarily. It’s far from ideal, but it would maintain service to the two busiest upstate stations and Burlington would have the capability to overnight a crew (I think, in so far as there is a procedure) and possibly a second train set. Port Kent is accessible by ferry and if I had to do a bus, Burlington is a lot closer than Montreal. Plattsburgh could be served by a van. I’m sure there’s a contractor up there who would take the work. The schedule could actually be pretty good. It would probably generate enough ridership to not be a total mess.

Plattsburgh can already be served by a Van from the Ethan Allen. There is absolutely no need to run another train to Burlington. The Adirondack can be and is getting extended to Saratoga, and that is all that is needed. Beyond that ridership is sparse according to NYSDOT, absent extension to Montreal..

The ridership to/from Plattsburgh including those going to/coming from Canada in 2019 was 19 riders per train. Take away the Canadian travelers, and we are down to something like 10 probably. Fits nicely in a biggish van.

 

[fdaley]

Plattsburgh can already be served by a Van from the Ethan Allen.

There is a lake in the way, unless the van rides the ferry or goes up to the bridge at Rouses Point. But you're correct that the overall ridership from Plattsburgh is not that high. Nineteen per day is an average, though; I have seen probably 75 piling off there when the SUNY students were returning to campus from a break. But there are probably some midday, off-season trips where there are fewer than 10. Given the long border stop and slow running in Canada, I would guess ridership from PLB to the north was next to none; I don't remember seeing any on most of my trips through there.

 

[Amtrak25]

Fort Edward, Whitehall, Ticonderoga, and Westport all told do not amount to much. The daytime GL and ADT buses only stop at Glens Falls.

Most of the other SUNY colleges don't have any rail service at all, so DOT is not going to extend themselves for SUNY Plattsburgh. It is pretty much a weekend and semester break market, not just to go downstate, but to get to Montreal for culture and partying. That makes the business case of only running the train to Plattsburgh and no bus beyond even weaker.

An overnight train avoiding hot temperatures would work fine for Plattsburgh, as did the Montrealer for Burlington. They can even pick out 2 of 25 Viewliner-I's to assign.

The harsh reality is either DOT or some federal funding like IIJA/BIL fixes the CN tracks, reroutes on the CP, or just forget the whole thing and put up 180 notices north of Fort Edward.

People on the ESPA and Adirondack FB pages are too busy lashing out at CN to get practical. The situation has been accruing for 4 years. CN has dropped the other shoe and there is nothing we can do about it.

 

[zephyr17]

or just forget the whole thing and put up 180 notices north of Fort Edward.

Or just forget the whole thing, period, and leave it "suspended" forever like Sunset East.

Less paperwork.

 

[glensfallsse]

Thank you all for spelling Glens Falls correctly. One or both of the S’s often gets dropped.

 

[Winecliff Station]

Thank you all for spelling Glens Falls correctly. One or both of the S’s often gets dropped.

Having grown up in Poughkeepsie and lived for years in Schenectady, I appreciate accurate spelling

Regarding the Adirondack, all this time since the pandemic I had assumed that only the Canada segment had been cancelled. Given how packed the Ethan Allen can be I’m surprised there’s no longer a market for north of Albany, at least in NYS or Amtrak’s opinion. When I lived in Saranac Lake I’d often take the train from Plattsburgh, or if I needed a better schedule, from Saratoga. The Saratoga station was always busy and not just during track season.

 

[Amtrak25]

Were it not for Vermont, there would be no service at Saratoga Springs at all. NY DOT is almost entirely a highway agency and a bookkeeping firm to write Amtrak checks as mandated by PRIIA-209. Spending $2.5 Billion to rebuild I-81 through Syracuse is so much more fun from an agency calcified in 1965.

 

[John Bredin]

Things would be a good bit easier if NYSDOT was enthusiastic about passenger rail, but the good news is bureaucracies get their marching orders from above. If the legislature decides there's going to be intrastate Adirondack service and appropriates funds accordingly, DOT officials will carry it out whether they're excited or not. In turn, the legislature decides that when enough New York residents -- including those with a little more pull than the average, like town officials, tourism boards, and chambers of commerce along the route north of Albany -- convey to legislators their demand to restore intrastate service.

As to demand, a reliable service attracts related services like shuttle buses and ferries so that hotels, resorts, colleges, towns, etc. not directly on the rail line leverage the line's operation to attract people from large metro areas. Not necessarily on-time reliability, though that definitely helps, but general reliability. You know, the opposite of suspended service for over two years that gets suspended again after only a couple of months.

And I feel that two trains a day -- a morning and an evening train in each direction -- attracts more ridership than one train a day. One train forces planners to decide if the primary purpose of the train is to get people from the hinterland to the big city in the morning and back in the evening or vice versa to bring people from the big city to the hinterland for a day trip. If they pick the former as seems common (see Pere Marquette & Blue Water) and reasonable (getting locals to the big city for connections to elsewhere), it's not useful for the big-city crowd to day-trip, only to visit the hinterland for a weekend or the like (leave city Friday evening, return Monday morning). Two trains (what Illinois did with the Illini/Saluki and Illinois Zephyr/Carl Sandburg) accommodate various kinds of travel.

If Berkshires summer service works (and I get that it's seasonal and non-daily), I can't believe there's no demand for carless New Yorkers (or those who don't relish long drives) to get to the Adirondacks or Lake Champlain if there was service both they and the hospitality industry they'd patronize could reliably plan around.

 

[west point]

Mr. Bredin brings up a point that I had not considered. At the present time Amtrak has not become a demand driven passenger operation. Amtrak cannot adapt to varying demands for seats. Probably that can be attributed to the lack of surge fleet equipment. Some legacy RRs did that very well but others not so well. For example I rode more than one L&N holiday train overcrowded while passing idle coaches at the end of the long route.

Right now due to Amtrak mis management of its fleet it cannot even handle demand. Amtrak moved a sleeper from Meteor to the LSL. Well both trains have no sleeper space tomorrow.

 

[railiner]

There has been no service growth West of Albany since its inception - post Amtrak unlike say, California or the Pacific Northwest to some extent.

Couldn’t that be because New York has not grown in that region compared to California and the Pacific Northwest?
Hard to justify expanding service to a stagnant at best, or shrinking population base…

 

[railiner]

Continental Trailways was itself a group of companies. Edwards Motor Transit in Williamsport ran the coast-to-coast I-80 route east of Cleveland, though owned a maintenance facility in Omaha.

The Continental Trailways company that owned the Omaha garage was American Buslines. They pooled with Edwards, running the thru trips west of Cleveland.

New York Trailways bought the remaining assets (several MC-9 buses) from Western New York bus company (Empire Trailways) when they were going out of business.

NYT didn’t get any MC-9’s from Empire, but did get some newer MCI 102 -s

 

[jis]

Couldn’t that be because New York has not grown in that region compared to California and the Pacific Northwest?
Hard to justify expanding service to a stagnant at best, or shrinking population base…

It is possible. A similar argument could be used to reduce funding for the NEC too, afterall the NEC region has been losing Congressional seats for a while now. But both would be incorrect reasons for making funding decisions IMHO.

 

[Mailliw]

There are businesses and organizations in Montreal that are concerned about this, but I think they really need to aggressively lobby the provincial and federal governments for improvements. A night train would be ideal for bringing American tourists to Montreal.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mtl-nyc-amtrak-delay-1.6904546

 

[BlackDiamond]

The problem with the argument that service need not be expanded in a shrinking population area is that rail often has only a tiny percentage of overall trips so better service could convert some car and even air trips to rail. Is the service ever advertised or is it a well kept secret like much Amtrak service?

 

[Amtrak25]

What Interstate highway has been shut down or downsized to be bi-directional on one side of the barrier due to declining population it passes through ?

Maybe I-88 from Corning to Jamestown, NY, but that has not kept anyone from building it in the first place or even contemplate getting rid of it.

 

[jis]

What Interstate highway has been shut down or downsized to be bi-directional on one side of the barrier due to declining population it passes through ?

Maybe I-88 from Corning to Jamestown, NY, but that has not kept anyone from building it in the first place or even contemplate getting rid of it.

And then there is I-86 between Waverly NY and I-87. No one is stopping that from happening even though there is Route 17 that it is upgrading. This also has to do partly with NY State upstate-downstate schism. Even when money has to be allocated downstate for rail improvement, the balancing allocation upstate is often to highway upgrade with basically no incrementals going to rail.

 

[Amtrak25]

I should have said I-86, not I-88.

 

[Septa9739]

The same applies to 88. NYS 7 is perfectly sufficient to handle the load.

 

[Amtrak25]

The same applies to 88. NYS 7 is perfectly sufficient to handle the load.

So true. I remember hearing in the 1980's that it was the least used interstate highway in the US, built on the insistense of a NYS Senate Leader Warren Anderson.

As for I-86, most of its traffic splits off and heads to Rochester. From that point west to Olean is such a white elephant, probably used by mostly St Bonaventure students, or trucks headed to I-90 in Erie. NY State conned us into thinking completing the Southern Tier Expressway would hault and reverse the exodus of industry and people from the Southern Tier. Instead, it accelerated it.

But no one would propose shutting it down and going back to Route 417, the old Route 17 from Corning to Olean.

Forget about Southern Tier passenger service. Lucky if Scranton service ever gets to Binghamton.