We return to the Windsor Locks Bus stop at 4:20, there is one other passenger waiting to board. At 4:27 our Shuttle Train #475 arrives in push-mode with an ex-Metroliner Cab Car, followed by an Amfleet-I and then the P42. Only the middle non-cab car is open with maybe 12 people on board one other gets on with us. The conductor scans my iPhone and gets the screen requiring me to show ID which I find and show. He says he hates asking people for id and doesn’t like that new feature of eTicking with the iPhone asking it randomly. We slowly cross the Farmington River and enter Windsor.
At 4:32 we arrive in Windsor for 4 passengers. The chevron arrows have been covered up with the new logo.
It’s a quick 5 minutes and at 4:39 slowly enter Hartford, through a tunnel at the Hart interlocking. The cab car has been opened. There like 30 people boarding. It has a chain link fence over what was once a second track. We slowly leave passing the parking garages and highways with grade crossing. We move up the cab car and decide to sit together.
- 4:55 — Berlin. A stop I need to revisit when the agent is there. We keep passing houses.
- 4:59 — Pass Silver Lake on one side before a bit more industry. A man waves at us from his home.
- 5:02 — slowly enter Meriden with a bunch of tracks piled up along the right of way. The grade crossings are unarmed. We then pass the original traffic light. A lady gets on with just an older version of the app, she looks up her reservation on e-mail. I tell her to update the app.
We pass a graveyard as we enter Wallingford at 5:14.
We get the arriving annoucement for New Haven and are told to walk 8 feet across the platform for train 179. He says to go downstairs to other platforms for Metro-North, shoreline east and into the station for other Amtrak trains and ends with on behalf of Matt Ben and Travis, thank you for choosing the railway. I see the conductor ripping up and throwing away the pouch normally used to send paper tickets to El Paso for accounting, all eTickets on this train!
At 5:23 we get a view of the Quinnipack as we come to the industry outside of New Haven. We pass a large freight yard with Providence and Wooster locomotives. It was once electrified and enter the Northeast Corridor slowly.
At 5:30 stop in front of State Street. An M8 is approaching. It enters to reverse and go to Grand Central. The train turns within 20 seconds. The conductor says we’re waiting for a train traffic control and says its like air traffic control. An Acela train goes by and an HHP-8 going northbound.
We arrive into New Haven’s Union Station at 5:35. There is another Shuttle idling and some abandoned M2s that say FICX written in spray paint are visible. They also of grafeti on them. They are on their way to the scrapyard.
Northeast Regional #174 comes in 5 minutes late at 5:52. We hop aboard the last door of the last car getting pictures of the train entering. We end up walking the entire length of the regional all six cars with the cafe car in the middle except into the Business Class Car. There is no place to sit together. The conductor ends up pointing out a booth in the cafe across from a women wokring on her laptop. It’s uncomfortable for two of us and our small backpacks (our only luggage) are stuck being laid on the table. The conductor comes scans our tickets and hands us yellow seat checks.
- 6:09 — Pass the Bridgeport maintenance yard.
- 6:11 — Go over a new bridge and Bridgeport. A women is in the cafe car trying to meet someone. Turns out he is on the Acela. The train keeps losing HEP. The train seems to have three conductors.
- 6:28 — we go through Norwalk and finally get a table to ourselves. Much more comfortable. Sitting across from each other
- 6:34 — arrive in Stamford and immediately hear “All Aboard.” The conductor collects our yellow seat checks as we leave passing a large construction site.
- 6:42 — enter Port Chester, and New York State crossing the Byram River
- 6:52 — pass New Rochelle and enter Amtrak territory. I haven’t ridden over the Hell Gate Bridge since February 2006
- 6:53 — Party City and follow I-95 a bit
- 6:55 — enter the greenery of Pelham Bay Park and New York City. Co-op city is off in the distance. I think its really neat how you enter the city in a park.
- 6:57 — cross the Hutchinson River bridge on its swing bridge. Then the Pelham Parkway and speed up.
- 6:59 — pass the Modell’s warehouse and then through the Bronx on the very wide ROW.
- 7:00 — the Parkchester Houses then West Farms Bus Depot
- 7:01 — under the 6 train and by the Concrete Plant Park as a regional passes
- 7:02 — pass a yard with boxcars of trash I bet. Then through Hunts Point with CSX connections.
- 7:04 — cross over to Randall’s Island and the ballfields followed by the sewage treatment plant on Wards Island.
- 7:05 — Reach the Queens span with a third unelectrified track and over the yards of Astoria and Ditmars Blvd. Pass a bunch of Astoria brownstones. The sun is setting Manhattan visible on the opposite side of the train.
- 7:09 — get to the LIRR and East Side access construction. We then pass Sunnyside yard and see three long distance trains with baggage cars. We pass Hunterspoint Avenue and enter the East River tunnels, ears popping.
- 7:14 — see the switches as we enter Penn Station and arrive
The train arrives on track 14, mainly a Long Island Railroad platform. I am quite happy because it is the last platform with access to the West End Concourse. I walk towards the front of the train accidentally beyond the staircase up to it (and snap a quick photo of its AEM7). I then take the staircase up and am directly at the entrance to the A train, not having to enter the main crowds of the station. I take the subway home ending another successful trip and happy the only stretch of Amtrak (the MBTA Commuter Rail lines I haven’t made any dents in) I need to ride in New England is the Lake Shore from Boston to Albany.