PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Flyer, a two-year pilot program to provide “one seat” passenger service from New York City to Berkshire County in Massachusetts, will move ahead, as funding for the program was included in the state’s budget signed into law Wednesday.
The program will receive “not less than $270,000” for its inaugural year, set to begin in Spring 2020, according to a representative of state Sen. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield, who spearheaded the project. There is also $30,000 set aside for a project manager, and $100,000 earmarked for marketing the trains.
The Flyer is expected to start as a seasonal, weekend train running between New York Penn Station and Pittsfield. The connection point would be Amtrak’s Albany-Rensselaer, N.Y., station, where the north-south Empire Corridor connects with the east-west line to Boston. One train would run from New York to Pittsfield on Friday, and another would run the opposite way on Sunday. The service would run from Memorial Day through Columbus Day weekends. A ticket is expected to cost about $70 each way.
With funding secured, now comes the work of getting everything in place for next spring, the representative says. The state’s Department of Transportation will begin working with Amtrak on schedules and other logistics. The state and the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority will need to iron out exactly how the program will run. The marketing plan will be implemented by 1Berkshire, the county’s economic development and tourism council.
A route through western CT via the Housatonic RR would mirror the service provided by the New Haven RR during the last century. Several years ago the railroad and supporters along the line were considering the possibility of new passenger service, but whether or not anything came of it is not clear to me.
This service should be assigned a cab control car on the end and do a switch back move out on the Castleton Bridge and eliminate all the out of route time and delay going through Renssealer. And then build the one mile wye connection east of the bridge and make a direct high speed run. All the track on this route is safe for passenger trains and need no special work.
If this proposed service can be instituted, why is Amtrak so hesitant to implement seasonal service to extend the Downeaster from its current terminus in Brunswick, Maine to the end of the state owned line in the heart of coastal Rockland, Maine? I have ridden this line a couple of times a few years back. The track was in fine condition. The scenery was beautiful. And every community along the route has expressed support for this project. NNERPA has worked tirelessly to expand Downeaster service to Rockland during the Summer tourism season only to be rebuffed by Amtrak using one excuse or another. It is a shame.
Financially this will fail. To get any passengers (nowhere near enough to pay for train’s outsized expenses per passenger) it would need to be packaged with hotel rooms, limousine pickup and Tanglewood concert tickets.
Let’s walk through this. A family in Manhattan with a comfortable income and no car:
Taxi to Penn Station
Long train ride
Limousine Pittsfield depot to hotel
Limousine hotel to Tanglewood
Limousine Tanglewood to hotel
Limousine hotel to train
Long train ride
Taxi Penn Station to home
Cost of the weekend package includes costs of all the above. Add gratuities to all limo and taxi drivers for the rides and handling luggage. Family’s experience includes wait times for all the above – each transfer consumes twenty minutes to an hour longer than simply getting in a private car and going. The train ride will probably be at least two hours longer than driving through western Connecticut.
Does that market exist? Yes it does. There are upper-income people in Manhattan without cars, and people all across the socio-econic spectrum who can’t drive (age, disability). So yes, some people will ride this train. Not many. The border between New York State and Berkshire County (Massachusetts) is the most beautiful place in the entire world; that won’t make this train successful.
How about running the train thru the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum. Use Metro-North tracks to Connecticut then Housatonic North to Pittsfield. I did not know that Massachusetts owned the line in state.
Barring something unusual, I suspect this will not work out financially. Maybe they are counting on Warren becoming President and keep it going?
It would have been nice if the Harlem Div still ran to Chatham. In NYC days they ran a train to Pittsfield via Chatham. In PC days thy ran an extra Friday evening train to Chatham, and return to GCT on Sunday.
So, they propose to spend almost half of the appropriation on a project manager and “marketing?”
$140 round trip doesn’t sound like a fare that will attract anyone beyond the rail enthusiast.
Haven’t we had this discussion before? The route is extremely indirect, not overwhelmingly fast (east of Renssalaer) and one train a week is something out of the fourth world.
One stop in Massachusetts just plain stinks for a resort area which spills over half a county. One train a week seasonal only would embarass a fourth-world country.
This is HOW NOT to run a passenger railroad. For shame.