Shuttle Train #475 arrives in Push-Mode led by the cab car on time. The two conductors open both vestiblue doors and I sit in the cab car before the red, crew only backwards flag. There like three people in normal clothes sitting behind the flag, I believe they are Amtrak employees deadheading. I sit as close to the open front of the train as possible to hear the unique cab car bells and noises of the engineer. We leave at 4:43 picking up speed, passing industry south of Harford.
- 4:54 – Berlin, CT, there quite a few people getting on the windows of this station that I haven’t been inside bus has nice homemade signs on the exterior windows. A few people get off I think who commute on the Shuttle from Hartford or Springfield, they don’t have any baggage. I see someone get a picture of our train out her car window as we leave Berlin. I see yet another employee who gets his ID card swiped in the new ticket scanners. I did a day trip up here last May and the conductors had just gotten the scanners. They were discussing if the ID cards should swipe. Now an ID is swiped with no verbal communication. My ticket is scanned and I get a generic white seat check.
- 4:58 – Get a nice view of the Connecticut River.
- 5:01 – slow down again as we enter Meridan, we arrive at 5:03, the station house dark with the usual people loitering outside for buses. They are violating the Train Station Property: is for official business only. No Trespassing sign that I notice. We pass a kid at a grade crossing covering his ears as we go over the grade crossings through Meridan.
- 5:13 – the nice historic Wallingford Train Station. We leave and pick up speed
- 5:21 – Go past marsh land and slow down. We pass a bunch of old Amtrak material handling cars. The remains of Catenary towers begin, there a bunch of ballast cars with Amtk reporting marks.
- 5:24 – the NEC arrives parallel to us with silver supports. a shuttle passes us the other way and we slowly switch onto the NEC.
- 5:25 – see an M8 and pass New Haven-State Street.
The train arrives at the forth Union Station of the day, New Haven-Union Station at 5:30 with an annoucement thanking the crew by name and thanking the enginner. He tells passengers to go across the platform for Train #275 to Washington, DC and to use the underpass for tracks 12 and 14 for Metro-North and tracks 2 and 4 for Shore Line east. I decide to walk to State street for my 5:55 Metro-North express train that actually stops at Fordham. I’ve never been there yet. There is a 5:35 train I could just make but it will only get me to Fordham with the transfer to a local 5 minutes earlier.