lilbluefoxie Posted December 28, 2012 Share #26 Posted December 28, 2012 neither Amenia or Wassaic is urban in the slightest. Both are rural farm towns, far past the reaches of the New York City suburbs. The nearest town of any sort of urbanization along the Harlem line is Pawling, otherwise the nearest cities are Danbury or Poughkeepsie. Rail Trails are very difficult to convert back into an actual rail line and I don't think the MTA is going to spend a lot of money and battle it out in court to build a line that will serve a small amount of customers, instead they could focus their money on improving service where it affects a larger amount of people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qjtransitmaster Posted December 28, 2012 Share #27 Posted December 28, 2012 neither Amenia or Wassaic is urban in the slightest. Both are rural farm towns, far past the reaches of the New York City suburbs. The nearest town of any sort of urbanization along the Harlem line is Pawling, otherwise the nearest cities are Danbury or Poughkeepsie. Rail Trails are very difficult to convert back into an actual rail line and I don't think the MTA is going to spend a lot of money and battle it out in court to build a line that will serve a small amount of customers, instead they could focus their money on improving service where it affects a larger amount of people. sadly your right those places are empty anyway but why do so many people even get on at wassiac? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vistausss Posted December 28, 2012 Share #28 Posted December 28, 2012 @lilbluefoxie: Well, there must be a reason so many people board at at least Wassaic. Why did the extend it to Wassaic anyway in 1998 if it's such a small amount of people living there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilbluefoxie Posted December 28, 2012 Share #29 Posted December 28, 2012 @lilbluefoxie: Well, there must be a reason so many people board at at least Wassaic. Why did the extend it to Wassaic anyway in 1998 if it's such a small amount of people living there? many people that use it are the people with second homes up there and in the Berkshire region. Once you get that far up there aren't that many people commuting to Manhattan, and the end of the line like that is going to have the people from further north driving down. Whatever the ridership may be, its not as busy as Southeast station, which is another stop that people from all over drive to, to board the Harlem line; or stations like Scarsdale further down the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qjtransitmaster Posted December 28, 2012 Share #30 Posted December 28, 2012 many people that use it are the people with second homes up there and in the Berkshire region. Once you get that far up there aren't that many people commuting to Manhattan, and the end of the line like that is going to have the people from further north driving down. Whatever the ridership may be, its not as busy as Southeast station, which is another stop that people from all over drive to, to board the Harlem line; or stations like Scarsdale further down the line. where do all those ppl who use southeast come from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilbluefoxie Posted December 29, 2012 Share #31 Posted December 29, 2012 where do all those ppl who use southeast come from? they come from the Danbury area, some of em would rather take the train from Southeast because the service is more frequent than the Danbury branch, the lady from the i ride the harlem line blog was talking about it in some of her posts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truckie Posted December 29, 2012 Share #32 Posted December 29, 2012 Lilbluefoxie is right. You can't just think of these stations being in existence to service the towns they are in. I know a few that commute regularly from Massachusetts to New York via Wassaic. Then there is the city folk with their weekend homes up north. Southeast is very popular due to the fact there is more than twice the departures and arrivals than Danbury and points north on the Harlem Line. Between the hours of 4:30am and 7:30am there is about 10 departures that originate in Southeast compared to 4 each from Wassaic and Danbury. People will drive the extra distance (Patterson, Pawling, Danbury) for the more frequent service and larger parking facilities. Don't hurt yourself thinking that they'll open up the Beacon Line for Amtrak and connecting from the Empire corridor to the North East corridor, it will never happen. Metro North is going to care about them selves first. They are not going to get any money for the wet dream of through service. Not an Amtrak train that there isn't even the track space to run it on. From block limit River to block limit FAIR it's roughly 50 miles of single track. That means you can one run trains in one direction at a time. There isn't much room to put in sidings. At the end of the day you will still have people driving from Fishkill to Beacon and Stormville to Southeast because of more frequent service. Then there's the problem the Beacon Line being MBS territory. Metro North would have to sink who knows how much to upgrade the line with signals and PTC to comply with FRA regulations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BM5 via Woodhaven Posted December 30, 2012 Share #33 Posted December 30, 2012 Although most people who visit Wassaic see nothing up there. The only transportation mode to use is Loop effective from October (rush hours and some midday service). I think though to fan bus+train going up the Harlem Valley, you would need to get off at Tenmile River, as Loop operates directly to the station, compared to Loop operating only up to the DDSO in Wassaic (dont know why it doesnt go to the Wassaic Station sonce its literally one minute away) making you walk 10 minutes down to the DDSO. The Beacon Line would be afterthought. I suggest making the current Route go to Southeast (Yes might be a long route after), but for the mean time, as bus service is cheaper to operate then rail service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vistausss Posted December 30, 2012 Share #34 Posted December 30, 2012 Then there's the problem the Beacon Line being MBS territory. Metro North would have to sink who knows how much to upgrade the line with signals and PTC to comply with FRA regulations. Unfortanetly for you, Metro North bought the Beacon Line in 1995 from MBS so it's up to MNRR what to do with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truckie Posted December 30, 2012 Share #35 Posted December 30, 2012 Unfortanetly for you, Metro North bought the Beacon Line in 1995 from MBS so it's up to MNRR what to do with it. Not unfortunate for me, personally I don't see the cost vs benefit of running trains on the line the way some want. I'm just pointing out that if MNRR chose to run service on it they have to comply with the federally mandated regulations hence one of the reasons for the signal upgrades to the Danbury branch and the West of Hudson Lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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