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Amtrak Transit Adventures

The Inaugural Northbound Vermonter Backing out of Springfield with Company Cars and Shuttle Train #475 to Metro-North Home

I decide to bail on the Vermonter, spending the extra $22 to buy a ticket on Shuttle Train #405 in an hour to photograph the northbound train backing out. I walk through a very crowded Springfield Station–(40 Photos), and walk south down Main Street trying to get along the Connecticut River. Downtown Springfield has major problems […]

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Amtrak Transit Adventures

The Crowded First Vermonter to stop in Greenfield and Northampton down the Knowledge Corridor

I have a nice morning with my cousins including their couple of young children who all decide to drop me off at the train station. We arrive maybe 20 minutes early. An older woman immediately comes out from the new Vermont/Connecticut River Valley tourism office behind the station welcoming us to wait inside there. She […]

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Amtrak Transit Adventures

The Last Vermonter via Palmer and Amherst to Windsor, VT (4 Minutes late because of the Amherst Platform Party)

Introduction and the electric Vermonter ride north from New York-Penn Station to New Haven. The train leaves New Haven–(14 Photos), two minutes late (at its weekdays departure time) at 1:25pm and were through the open-trench of New Haven. 1:30 – Officially curve off the Northeast Corridor. 1:37 – Alnex Wallingford plant. Then the Trackside Brick oven […]

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Metro-North Transit Adventures

Riding the Rerouted Vermonter: Starting on the Last Vermonter via Plamer and Amherst – An ACS-64 pulling a cab car

Introduction: In early December Amtrak and the state of Massachusetts announced that Monday, December 29, 2014 (earlier than I thought it might be, having read January 2015 as the default date) would be the first date of service along the rerouted Vermonter route via the Knowledge Corridor via new stops in Northampton and Greenfield, with […]

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Transit Adventures

Visiting West Haven and an AGR Points Run on the Vermonter and Shuttle as far as Berlin

When I headed up to New Haven last August for my Long Day Wending my Way to Rhode Island trip the conductor on the local train from Fordham to Stamford didn’t punch my ticket so in Stamford I bought a new ticket from Stamford to New Haven for $6.75 and decided to save my full […]

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Transit Adventures

Westerly, RI to Windsor, VT aboard a NE Regional to the Crowded Vermonter (Listing to the sounds of the Cab Car)

The main thing that spurred this Local Trains to Boston and Vermont trip was needing to take the train up and meet my parents in Windsor, Vermont where we have relatives. I’ve taken the train up to that station with the lowest ridership of any stop in the Northeast before but not in many years. […]

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Transit Adventures

The Vermonter led by Heritage P42 #156 with a cab car at the other end and a second, normal P42 from Springfield-Union Station to Hartford-Union Station — Back from Boston via the Inland Route (Part 3)

The Vermonter comes in early at 2:36 on the track closest to the station, led by P42 #156 covered in snow in the heritage paint scheme. I ask the new engineer waiting for the train if I can get a photo of the locomotive. The answer is yes but don’t go beyond the forklift near […]

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Transit Adventures

The Vermonter from St Albans along the Winooski, White and Connecticut Rivers to Windsor Locks

The main reason I wanted to make the loop trip up to Burlington is to ride the Vermonter in full. The friend I am visiting is another railfan and he decides to leave his family and ride back with me. Yesterday we went on a bit of a driving adventure to downtown Burlington so I […]

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Transit Adventures

A 1200 AGR points day for just $46 ($23 to each train company) to Hartford via Metro North and Amtrak’s Shuttle and Vermonter

This week is AGR Triple Point week in honor of National Train Day (I’ll be at Grand Central of course). If I lived in a place with a cheep corridor train (for example Philadelphia with the unreserved Keystone, $6.50 for 300 points out to Paoli) I would be trying to ride it quite a few […]

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Amtrak California Transit Adventures

Driving back from Vermont via more stations, plus Upload: Turlock & Denair, California

Well I haven’t made an update for a few days because I was in Vermont again visiting my family there and today on the way back drove via the Windsor (VT), Bellows Falls, Brattleboro, and Amherst Vermonter Stations, all with their station houses open since I was just ahead of the Vermonter which I ended […]