New Haven – Springfield railway line
| New Haven CT-Springfield MA | |
|---|---|
 Meriden station with an Amtrak passenger train
with attached mail cars, 2002. | |
| Route length: | 99.8 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Dual track : | New Haven – North Haven, Holt – Quarry Junction, Newington Junction – Parkville, Windsor – Hayden, CT / MA border – Springfield, previously: entire route |
| Society: | Amtrak |
| Shared use: |
New Haven Union Station – State Street: MNR , NH Union Station – Cedar Hill: SLE , CSXT , PW , Güterbf. Cedar Hill – Springfield: CSO , PAS |
The railway line New Haven-Springfield is a railway line in Connecticut and Massachusetts ( United States ). It is around 100 kilometers long and connects the cities of New Haven , Meriden , Berlin , Hartford , Windsor and Springfield , among others .
The standard gauge route belongs to the Amtrak , which operates the passenger traffic on it. The Connecticut Southern Railroad (CSO) and Pan Am Southern (PAS) have joint use rights for the route with the exception of the section from New Haven Union Station to Cedar Junction in the north of the city. In the city of New Haven, the Metro North Railroad (MNR) (to State Street), the Shore Line East (SLE), a railway company under the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the CSX Transportation (CSXT) and the Providence and Worcester Railroad (PW) Joint usage rights. The CSXT and PW use the section from Union Station to Cedar Hill for freight traffic, the SLE for passenger traffic. The MNR runs individual passenger trains from New York to State Street station.
The section from New Haven to Cedar Hill is part of the Northeast Corridor and is electrified with 12,500 volts and 60 Hertz alternating current.
history
Investors from Hartford, New Haven and the places in between intended to build a railroad that would connect Hartford to the coast on the one hand and to give the city of New Haven better access to the Connecticut River on the other. Until then, the only means of transport were via the Connecticut River, which was often frozen over in winter, or via unpaved country roads. In May 1833, the Hartford and New Haven Railroad was founded . Construction began in New Haven in 1836, but had to be interrupted shortly afterwards due to financial difficulties. It was not until December 1838 that the first section from New Haven to Meriden went into operation. In December 1839 Hartford was reached and the planned route was completed. In New Haven at that time there was no rail connection to New York, traffic there was handled by ships.
The extension to Springfield had already been decided during the construction work and for the section lying in Massachusetts the shareholders founded the Hartford and Springfield Railroad on April 5, 1839 , which was formally established on October 6, 1841. In 1842, construction work began on the extension, which could not be completed until December 1844. On April 23, 1847, the two railway companies merged under the name of Hartford & New Haven. The wooden bridge over the Connecticut River at Warehouse Point was destroyed by a storm in October 1846. The train service was interrupted for 45 days until a new bridge was built. It was replaced by an iron bridge in 1866. In the 1850s, the entire line was expanded to two tracks.
From July 24, 1872, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad operated the railway line. The traffic was heavy and numerous express trains from New York to various cities and tourist regions in New England ran on it. In 1889 long-distance haulage dropped noticeably when the New Haven-Boston coast line via Providence was completed. Until then, the line was part of the New York – Boston connection. Regional traffic on the route only declined at the beginning of the 20th century, after several interurban tram operators had expanded their route networks to such an extent that all places along the route could also be reached by trams.
In 1969 Penn Central took over the route. Passenger traffic was transferred to Amtrak in 1971 , which bought the route in 1976. Penn Central was taken over by Conrail in the same year , which received a right of joint use and continued to operate freight services. In 1982, the Boston and Maine Railroad also acquired a right of use for the entire route, which was transferred a year later to Guilford Transportation , which has operated under the name Pan Am Railways since 2006 . In 2009, this company outsourced part of its network under the name Pan Am Southern . From 1990, Amtrak removed most of the second track on the Connecticut route. Only short encounter sections of a few kilometers in length have been preserved. With the dissolution of the Conrail in 1998, their right of use was transferred to the Connecticut Southern Railroad .
Connecticut and Massachusetts have been planning to expand the route for suburban traffic since around 2000. For this purpose, the second track is to be reinstalled on a large part of the route and the route infrastructure is to be renewed. The project should be completed in the mid-2010s.
Route description
The route begins at New Haven Union Station south of downtown and runs northeast through New Haven. Almost immediately after the station's apron is the New Haven State Street station in the city center, where some trains on the Metro North Railroad end and the trains on the Shore Line East stop. The Shore Line East carries passengers from Union Station to State Street for free. The Amtrak trains go through here. The line then crosses the Mill River and reaches Cedar Hill Station. In the former station, the Shore Line to New London and the airline to Willimantic branch off to the east and northeast, respectively, while the route to Springfield turns north. The junction is also called the Airline Junction . The section from Union Station to the Shore Line junction is part of the northeast corridor and is electrified.
After the junction there is a freight yard that is part of the Cedar Hill station complex. Another freight yard, which is located at the airline , is reached by a connecting track that branches off the route north of New Haven in a south-east direction. This siding belongs to Pan Am Southern and is not used by Amtrak. The main route continues north and crosses the Quinnipiac River . A stop for the suburban trains is to be built in North Haven. There was also a passenger train stop here earlier. This is where the double-track line has ended since the early 1990s. Wallingford is a few kilometers further on. The former train station was dismantled into a stop in the 1990s. The historic station building is still there and is still in use, but has not been used as a station building since 1994. It now serves the local model railroad association and training center.
The route continues to Meriden through the Wallingford district of Yalesville, where there used to be a train station. Here, too, the trains stop at the former station, but the station building has been demolished. In the urban area of Meriden, the line is double-track. To the north of Meriden station, at the Quarry Junction junction , the disused Waterbury – Cromwell railway line crosses the railway line on an existing bridge. A connecting curve consisted of the direction of Springfield towards Waterbury. A few kilometers further north, the route reaches the city of Berlin. Today the passenger station is only a single-track stop with a side platform. The branch to Middletown had its own platform on the other side of the reception building, which makes the station a wedge station . On the other side of the track, the line to New Britain branches off in a spacious triangle of tracks, which gave the station the name New Britain Junction . From the track triangle only the connecting curve towards Springfield is used, the track in the other connecting curve serves as a siding and is no longer connected to the main track.
The line continues northwards and after a few kilometers the route joins the disused Waterbury – Providence railway line . This railway line ran to Hartford right next to the line to Springfield. The junction was called Newington Junction . According to the plans of the Ministry of Transport, a new stopping point for suburban trains is also to be set up here. In Hartford, the trains stop today on the only remaining track of the formerly multi-track Hartford Union Station , the house platform is without track. Directly to the north of the station is a former track triangle whose connecting curve to Union Station has been completely dismantled. The track triangle connects the line to Poughkeepsie . About a kilometer further, the route branches off to Providence and the line from Fenwick joins. From here the route runs to Springfield along the Connecticut River , initially on its western bank.
North of Hartford, the railway line runs through Windsor and Windsor Locks. Only the trains to Springfield stop in Windsor, the Vermonter , the only remaining express train on the route, drives through. In Windsor Locks, Amtrak built a new stop south of the former station, where the trains now stop. The former passenger station has been demolished, but the line to Suffield still branches off here . After this junction, the railroad turns east and crosses the Connecticut River. This bridge is the most elaborate engineering structure on the route. On the other bank, the route turns north again. On the curve was Warehouse Point train station, which is in the East Windsor metropolitan area . The route now runs directly along the river bank north through Enfield, where another new stop is planned, and shortly thereafter crosses the state border to Massachusetts. From the border, the line is double-track. Through Longmeadow and the Springfield district of Pecowsic, the railway line reaches its end point in the center of Springfield. It joins the Worcester – Albany railway and ends at Springfield Union Station .
passenger traffic
In 1868 three express trains and a Sunday mail train from New York to Boston, three passenger trains between New Haven and Springfield, two passenger trains from Hartford to Springfield and back, and a pair of trains from New Haven to Meriden ran on the route.
After the opening of the main line via Providence, five express trains ran from New York to Boston via Hartford in 1893, but one of them ran between Hartford and Boston via Willimantic. Only two of the trains ran on Sundays. On weekdays there were also ten passenger trains between New Haven and Springfield and another between Hartford and Windsor Locks. On Sundays one passenger train ran the entire route and two between Hartford and Berlin, which then went on to New Britain.
In the decades that followed, numerous major express trains were set up to service the route, including the Bar Harbor Express to Maine, as well as trains to Montréal and the White Mountains. The low point of passenger traffic on the route came in 1971 when Amtrak took over passenger traffic. This year there were nine trains between New Haven and Hartford on weekdays, and four between Hartford and Springfield. On weekends, seven ran to Hartford and five to Springfield.
In 2012, in addition to the daily Vermonter express train (Washington DC – St. Albans VT), five pairs of trains ran between New Haven and Springfield on weekdays and six on weekends, some of which continued beyond New Haven to Washington.
Accidents
A serious train accident occurred on the line on September 2, 1913. In heavy fog, the numerous passenger and express trains heading south were jammed. The White Mountains Express coming from New Hampshire ran over a stop signal and drove at 80 km / h onto the Bar Harbor Express from Maine, which had stopped south of Wallingford . The latter train consisted of older wooden wagons, most of which were destroyed. 21 people died in the accident. The cause of the accident was, in addition to the outdated signal system, which was barely visible in foggy conditions, that the brakeman on the last car of the Bar Harbor Express had failed to secure the rear of the train, which was standing on the open track. In addition, the approaching train drove too fast.
Sources and further reading
- Individual evidence
- ↑ Connecticut state website on the construction project
- ↑ see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.
- ↑ Timetable of the route and the northeast corridor from July 2, 2012
- ↑ Karr 1995, p. 76.
- literature
- Ronald D. Karr: The Rail Lines of Southern New England. A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 1995. ISBN 0-942147-02-2
- Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. (2nd edition) SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2010. ISBN 1-874745-12-9