Taking LSL to and from Worcester Union Station in April. I know there are no checked baggage there but is there any place to store bags or sit while waiting for 449? Anyone been there in the past few months. Thanks for the info
Worcester MA station questions
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tricia
Conductor
It's been years since I've been there, and I was catching a commuter train into Boston for a NE Corridor train, but it's quite a spacious station. I'd be surprised if there were no place to sit down.
If you can rely on the MBTA website, the answer would be "no".
Worcester | Stations | MBTA
Worcester is the second-largest city in New England. It needs more Amtrak inter-city service, IMO.
Worcester | Stations | MBTA
Worcester is the second-largest city in New England. It needs more Amtrak inter-city service, IMO.
fdaley
OBS Chief
On my last visit there, nearly eight years ago [edit -- actually, we were there six years ago too], there was a small seating area off the main concourse, near the ticket office. I don't recall any provision for luggage storage -- unless the ticket agent will let you store bags with him/her. There is also a bus depot in the same facility, so perhaps there is luggage storage there?
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Amen to that; there needs to be a cross-state line connecting Boston with Springfield, and Worcester would be an obvious intermediate stop. I seem to remember talk about that in the late 1970's when I lived in Boston, but unfortunately, it hasn't happened.
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The Amtrak site says there is no bag storage. I don't believe there is a ticket agent. There is no checked baggage.
Obviously Worcester is too small of a place to warrant these things. Perhaps if it grows, Amtrak will install these services.
Obviously Worcester is too small of a place to warrant these things. Perhaps if it grows, Amtrak will install these services.
bratkinson
Conductor
Amtrak closed the WOR ticket office several years ago, based on what I read at he time. I've passed through on #449 or #448 a couple of times per year, but never got off to look around. I don't remember if there are or aren't a bench or two outside on the platform. Maybe there's a Dunkin Donuts in the station?
SubwayNut
Conductor
I've been to Worchester once and got on the Lake Shore (link to my pictures and a description on my website) it was back in 2013 when there was still a ticket agent and I still remember him using what looked like a red cap cart to bring checked baggage up to the train, no electric luggage cart used at every other station I know of with checked baggage.
Agreed. The station can truly handle it as well. It is definitely the most glorious and under-utilized station in New England.
There has been talk for years about extending the MBTA to Springfield. The Worcester Line however, is really congested, and notorious for lateness (I take it very regularly), and would have to be addressed.
AmeriStar has talked about connecting the Springfield portion of the NEC with North Station via Worcester and Grand Junction Railroad. Living about a mile from GJR myself, I think this is pretty impossible for the near future.
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The beautifully restored historic waiting room is only used as a rental event space. There are 3 separate waiting areas: MBTA commuter rail/Amtrak, intercity bus, and city bus. None are very big. I doubt that there is a place offering bag storage.
It is truly a shame such a beautiful station is so underutilized today. Besides being a major stop for its owner, Boston & Albany, part of the New York Central System; it was a hub also serving the New Haven and the Boston & Maine.
For a long time, the New York City to Maine trains called there...
For a long time, the New York City to Maine trains called there...
fdaley
OBS Chief
But it's a miracle that the building ever was restored. When I lived in Worcester briefly in 1980-81, the station was a ruin, the entrances sealed with cinder blocks and concrete. If you went up to the track side, you could peer in and see down to the old wooden benches, which were covered with debris from the caved-in roof. At the west end of the building, there was an overpass with a large sign saying, "Entrance for New Haven Railroad Shoreliner: Worcester - New London - New York." If you followed that sign through a rubble-filled area, you reached a staircase that took you up to the tracks, where of course no train had stopped in years. Amtrak had built a small new station and platform a block or so to the east when it restarted the Lake Shore in the mid-70s.
And although the Lake Shore is still (again) the only Amtrak service, the station now serves a whole fleet of MBTA trains.
Amtrak really needs to restore "The Bay State" at least, on the Inland Route...
fdaley
OBS Chief
A second Boston-Albany train would be more useful to me.
That would be better. Would be nice if it left Boston early enough to connect to the two Canada trains, but it would be too early for most riders...
At least, there would be connections to New Haven and to the Vermont trains at reasonable times.
fdaley
OBS Chief
With a five-hour running time, making good connections at Albany is difficult. But there has been a lot of discussion within Massachusetts lately of developing a multi-frequency cross-state corridor from Boston to Springfield and even to Pittsfield. If there were even a couple of other Boston-Pittsfield runs besides the Lake Shore, it would be smart to figure out how to extend them to Albany. And of course, if Mass. invests in some infrastructure upgrades to speed up the travel time, more things would become possible.
Both of these (amazing) prospects would require a lot of work on the Worcester line, which is so congested. What's even more annoying, is that there is so much space surrounding the tracks in many areas to allow for double or even triple tracking. Cash strapped companies won't change anything though.
fdaley
OBS Chief
Except for the first 12 miles from Rensselaer, the whole line was double track until Conrail tore out the second track about 30 years ago, so the clearances are there to restore that if the state wants to redevelop it as a passenger corridor. Another project for the infrastructure bill?
I am not on board with the line being congested. If more passenger trains are added, then yes--we are starting to get congested--but not very. And MassDOT has plans to double the track between Worcester and Springfield. West of Springfield, the line is single track for some miles. It would be nice if that were doubled up as well, give a two-track, CTC railroad from Boston to Pittsfield.
The line is already quite congested and it makes for pretty slow trip times. There are still some portions that are not double tracked.
As a frequent user of the Worcester Line for work, it can definitely get better. Especially around the times when Amtrak LSL runs.
If they added a stop at Chatham and Canaan, perhaps NY State would contribute to another train as far as the state line....
fdaley
OBS Chief
I have been on 448 when it got stuck behind one of the Worcester commuter runs. The Lake Shore is no speed demon, but the MBTA trains are really slow -- 90 minutes to cover 45 miles. And if freight traffic interferes on the single-track sections west of Worcester, it can stretch the Lake Shore's five-hour schedule to six hours or more for the 200 miles from Boston to Albany. So the capacity issues would need to be fixed before you could develop it for corridor service. But if the total trip time could be brought down reliably to 4.5 hours, then you'd be in a position to add frequencies, and the time, although not fully car-competitive, would be good enough for many travelers if they had, say, three schedule choices per day, maybe with a few extra runs east of Springfield.
All of which points to scheduling and dispatching deficiencies. Oh, and Amtrak's non-ability to run its own trains on time frequently enough. The line is two-tracks, reversed signaling. There really isn't any reason to think that an efficient operation cannot run between Boston and Worcester, except for the operating deficiencies I mentioned. BNSF runs double the number of trains that CSX does on its single track line through the Northern Tier, and they manage to get Amtrak over the road expeditiously. No reason the the MBTA and CSX NC dispatchers couldn't routinely do the same, especially with double the track capacity. [I've already acknowledged that MassDOT has plans to increase track capacity between Worcester and Springfield.]
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This discussion confirms my opinion that passenger and freight service do not mix well. East of Worcester works much better than it used to when it was dispatched by CSX although there were fewer trains. My vision is that the next step going west should be be a new shortcut to Hartford, built parallel to the Mass Pike and I-84, creating a Boston-NYC route better than the shoreline. After that construct a new line next to the Pike from Sturbridge to Palmer and then next to the RR into Springfield. This would bypass the circuitous historic B&A, now largely single track and save several miles.
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