It’s 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, February 7, 2008, and I’ve
just arrived at Central Station in Montreal, having detrained from VIA
Train #21 that I took from Quebec City. I will soon be boarding
the Adirondack, Train #68, on my way back to New York City.
My train from Quebec City was scheduled to arrive at
9:04 a.m., but we actually arrived six minutes early. I had been
a little concerned about the relatively close connection, but as it
turned out, I had nothing to worry about. I used the extra time
to purchase a soda to take with me on the trip, and sat down near the
entrance to Track 17 to await the boarding call for our train.
Boarding did not start until 9:19 a.m., only 11
minutes before the train’s scheduled departure. But, although
each ticket was checked at the gate, there were only 30 passengers who
boarded the train in Montreal, so boarding was completed well in
advance of our scheduled departure time of 9:30 a.m.
When I reached the platform, I was assigned to the
coach behind the café car (passengers destined to any other
station – even Croton-Harmon – were asked to sit in the coach in front
of the café car). Upon entering the car, I noticed that
one pair of seats on the right side at the rear of the car had far more
legroom than the rest of the seats, so I decided to sit there. I
knew that I would want to sit on the left side of the train for the
portion of the ride along Lake Champlain, but the train was far from
full, and I could always move to a seat on the left side of the car or
to the café car if I wanted to. I then walked down the
platform to record the consist.
Today’s Adirondack is pulled by engine 165 and
includes four 82000-series coaches, with a café car in the
middle of the train. The first and last coaches were closed off,
but there was ample room for all of the passengers in the remaining two
coaches. At 9:30 a.m., I heard on the scanner “highball 694,” and
we departed. The number 694 is the train number assigned to this
train by VIA and is used for all communications with the dispatcher
until we cross the border into the United States.
We stopped at St. Lambert at 9:42 a.m. Only
one person got on here, but we waited until our scheduled departure
time of 9:45
a.m. before we pulled out of the station. Soon, we departed from
the CN main line and headed south on the Rouses Point
subdivision. It was snowing quite heavily out, and everything was
covered with snow.
After the conductor came through to collect tickets,
I walked through both open cars and found that there were 19 people
headed to New York in my car (in back of the café car) and 11
people headed to Plattsburgh, Westport, Schenectady, Albany or
Croton-Harmon in the car in front of the café car. I then
returned to my car, where I remained until after the customs inspection
at Rouses Point.
Our journey down the Rouses Point subdivision was
quite a contrast to the speedy ride from Quebec to Montreal on
VIA. Although we were proceeding relatively fast in some places,
we crawled through the City of St. Jean, after first coming to a
stop. We stopped again just north of the border, at 10:57 a.m.,
so that a switch could be thrown, and our stop lasted for five minutes,
during which time we were blocking a grade crossing. We crossed
the actual Canada-U.S. border at 11:12 a.m. and finally arrived at
Rouses Point at 11:19 a.m. After stopping once more so that a
switch could be thrown, we came to a stop in front of the Rouses Point
station at 11:22 a.m.
Agents of the Customs and Border Protection Agency
(as it is now known) came aboard the train and started their
questioning of passengers at the rear of my car. Since I was
sitting in the last seat, I was the first one questioned. Even
though I had checked off on the customs declaration form that I was
bringing both food and meat into the country, the agent asked me only a
few questions and didn’t even question me about the food and
meat. He did tell a British citizen sitting a few rows in front
of me that she would have to come to the café car to fill out a
Form I-94 and pay $6.00. The woman in front of me was Canadian
and stated that she did not have a return ticket because she wasn’t
sure whether she would return by bus or by train, but after asking her
a few more questions, the agent moved on to the next person. The
inspection went relatively smoothly, and even though we arrived at
Rouses Point 17 minutes late, we departed at 12:07 p.m., only two
minutes late. The conductor later informed me that the customs
agents had remained on the train until just prior to our departure.
Because I would have to pay roaming charges of 69
cents a minute for any calls that I made in Canada, I did not make any
calls from my cell phone for the four-day period that I was in Montreal
and Quebec City. Now that I was back in the United States, I used
the opportunity to check all of my messages and make a number of
calls. This kept me busy for most of the time that the customs
inspection was taking place.
Soon after we departed Rouses Point, I took my
computer and moved down to the lounge car, where I remained for much of
the afternoon. I had brought along some food for lunch and
purchased a root beer from the lounge car attendant. It was
snowing quite heavily when we arrived at our next stop, Plattsburgh, at
12:38 p.m. Three passengers detrained here, and six people
boarded the train. When we departed at 12:41 p.m., we were six
minutes late.
Of course, the snow somewhat interfered with
visibility across Lake Champlain, but it also created a beautiful
“winter wonderland atmosphere” – especially when proceeding around the
sharp curves on ledges above the lake. And somehow, the snow did
not seem to delay us at all.
When we arrived at Westport, our next stop, at 1:40
p.m., three minutes early, only a small area had been cleared in front
of the station, and the remainder of the platform was covered with deep
snow. One passenger detrained here and three boarded, but only
the door at the rear of the café car could be used. Since
all of the boarding passengers were headed to destinations other than
Penn Station and were assigned to the car in front of the café
car, everyone getting on or off here had to walk through the
café car. We departed Westport on time at 1:43 p.m.
We arrived at our next stop, Port Henry, at 2:03
p.m., nine minutes early. The allotted time between Westport and
Port Henry, 29 minutes, assumes that we would take the siding at
Howards to permit the northbound Adirondack to pass us. However,
it actually takes only 20 minutes to get from Westport to Port
Henry. Since the northbound train was running late today, the
meet would take place further south, and we didn’t have to use the time
that was allotted for the meet.
Since we would be remaining in the station for nine
minutes, I had thought of stepping off the train, but it was still
snowing rather heavily, and I had taken off my heavy boots and was
wearing only Crocs. So I remained on the train while one
passenger detrained and six passengers got on. At 2:12 p.m., our
scheduled departure time, I heard “highball 68" on the radio, and then
we started moving ahead. But we immediately came to an abrupt
stop, then departed a minute later.
When the conductor returned to the café car,
he explained what had happened. As the train was about to pull
out of the station, a vehicle came racing down the driveway leading to
the station, with the horn beeping and a passenger frantically waving
her hands out of the window. The conductor then observed the car
start skidding and make a 360° turn – he commented that they almost
hit the station building! Seeing this, he radioed the engineer to
stop the train, and once the car somehow made it down to the platform,
the passenger was given the opportunity to board.
Our next stop, at 2:34 p.m., was Ticonderoga, but no
one got on or off here, and our stop lasted for only a few
seconds. However, just south of Ticonderoga, at CP 100, we pulled
onto the siding to permit the northbound Adirondack to pass us.
The northbound train was pulled by engine 105 and had the same five
cars that were on the northbound Adirondack that I took to Montreal on
Sunday. The speed limit for trains on the mile-long siding is, I
think, 10 miles per hour, as it took us six minutes to reach CP 99,
where we switched back to the main line and resumed our normal
speed. We had lost about six minutes, though, in the process.
As a result, we arrived at our next station,
Whitehall, at 3:12 p.m., seven minutes late. There was only a
single path, the width of one snow shovel, that had been cleared to the
tracks, but the train stopped at precisely the right place, permitting
the two waiting passengers to board without difficulty. South of
Whitehall, the snow stopped and the sun even began to come out.
Now that the stretch of running along Lake Champlain was over, I
returned to my seat. Soon, I decided to walk through the two open
cars and found that there were now 25 passengers in my car and 14
passengers in the coach in front of the café car.
We made a brief stop at Fort Edward, where one
person boarded, at 3:43 p.m., and we proceeded ahead to our next stop,
Saratoga Springs. Before we reached Saratoga Springs, the
conductor opened up the rear car. About 20 people boarded when we
arrived at Saratoga Springs at 4:06 p.m. When we departed two
minutes later, we were 15 minutes late.
As we proceeded further south, the amount of snow on
the ground began to decrease. After a while, I noticed that the
trees were covered with a layer of ice (rather than a heavy coating of
snow) and there was only a thin layer of snow on the ground. The
ice-coated branches gleamed in the sunlight, and I tried to record the
sight by taking a picture.
There is about half an hour of make-up time built
into the schedule between Saratoga Springs and Schenectady, so even
though we left Saratoga Springs 15 minutes late, we were 15 minutes
early when we arrived at Schenectady at 4:35 p.m. Since I knew
that we would be here for a while, I put my boots back on and walked
outside to the platform. Soon, an announcement was made that
Train #285 to Niagara Falls would be arriving in a few minutes.
Since there would be trains on both tracks at the station, passengers
were asked to make sure that they boarded the correct train.
Train #285 pulled into the station at 4:50 p.m.,
five minutes late, and departed two minutes later. It was pulled
by engine 702, one of Amtrak’s 18 dual-mode engines that generally do
not venture far beyond Albany. We departed on time at 4:53 p.m.
and headed for Albany, where we arrived on Track 2 at 5:14 p.m., 16
minutes early.
Not only had we arrived early, but our train is
scheduled to spend half an hour in Albany. We would not be
leaving until 6:00 p.m., so I decided to take the escalator upstairs
and walk around the station for a few minutes. Soon, I decided to
return to the train, but I found that the doors to the staircase and
elevator that lead down to the platform were locked, and the escalator
was still running up. However, in about five minutes (at about
5:30 p.m., our scheduled arrival time in Albany) an attendant came and
reversed the direction of the escalator, thus permitting passengers to
use it to descend to the platform. I went down to the train and
observed that our engine had already been replaced by dual-mode engine
717. I then reboarded my car.
I was getting a little hungry, so I took out a
package of smoked turkey that I had brought along with me and ate it
with some crackers. I also drank the bottle of soda that I
purchased in Montreal. In the meantime, Train #291 to Rutland
pulled into the Main Track at 5:38 p.m. and departed ten minutes
later. As I finished my dinner, we departed Albany on time at
6:00 p.m. It was now completely dark out, so I wouldn’t be able
to see anything during our trip down the Hudson River to New York City.
Soon, I decided to move back to the café car,
where I obtained a cup of tea and continued working on these
memoirs. We proceeded ahead at full speed to Hudson, from where
we departed at 6:26 p.m., just one minute late. Everything seemed
to be going fine so far.
But then, about 6:40 p.m., I heard a conversation on
the conductor’s radio indicating that Train #48, the Lake Shore
Limited, which was ahead of us, was having some problems. We had
just passed beneath the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge and now slowed down
to a restricted speed, which meant that we could not exceed 15 miles
per hour. It should have taken us less than five minutes to cover
the remainder of the distance to Rhinecliff, but we did not reach the
Rhinecliff station until 6:59 p.m. When we departed from
Rhinecliff at 7:01 p.m., we were 15 minutes late.
Sitting in the café car, I was aware of what
appeared to be the nature of the problem. However, no
announcement of the reason for the delay was made to the rest of the
passengers until 7:09 p.m., when the conductor announced that “we are
going on restricted speed here because of a disabled train in front of
us, and hopefully they will fix the problem and we will be able to move
ahead at normal speed.” At 7:30 p.m., we passed a detector that
indicated that our speed was 17 miles per hour. In the meantime,
I walked through the train and found that there were about 95
passengers aboard, with 40 in the first open coach, 10 in the
café car, 35 in the next coach, and only 10 passengers in the
rear coach.
Then, at 7:38 p.m., an announcement was made that we
just got a clear signal in the engine and that we would now be
proceeding ahead at full speed. It turned out that the problem
had not been the train ahead of us, but rather the signals. It
seems that the signals were knocked out by a storm, so that there was
no signal shown in the cab (this stretch of track is equipped with cab,
rather than wayside signals). In the absence of a signal
indication, the train must proceed at restricted speed, and that turned
out to be the real reason why were going so slowly. The mention
of the train ahead of us was simply to warn the engineer that he should
be alert because there was a train ahead, but the reason for the
restriction was the lack of signals, rather than the train
itself. (It appears from the announcement first made by the
conductor that he himself initially misunderstood the reason for the
speed restriction.)
Finally, at 7:47 p.m., we pulled into the
Poughkeepsie station. It had taken us 46 minutes to cover the 16
miles between Rhinecliff and Poughkeepsie, which we are scheduled to
cover in only 15 minutes. When we departed one minute later, we
were 47 minutes late.
I now looked at my NJ Transit Pascack Valley Line
schedule to see what train I would be able to take back to the Anderson
Street Station in Hackensack. There is an 8:30 p.m. departure
from Secaucus, with the connecting train leaving Penn Station at 8:11
p.m. Even were our train on time, I couldn’t have made this
connection, since Train #68 is not scheduled to arrive at Penn Station
until 8:25 p.m. However, I was hoping to catch the following
train, which departs Secaucus at 9:35 p.m., with the connection from
Penn Station leaving at 9:18 p.m.
Now that we were running 47 minutes late, though,
even if we lost no more time, we would arrive at Penn Station at 9:12
p.m. That would still give me enough time to make my connection,
but if we lost any more time, I wouldn’t make it and would have to wait
an hour for the next train – something which, at this point, I was not
looking forward to doing.
We proceeded ahead to Croton-Harmon, where we
arrived at 8:29 p.m. and departed one minute later. Now, we were
52 minutes late, and if we don’t make up any time, we will be arriving
at Penn Station at 9:17 p.m. – probably too late for me to connect to
another train leaving just one minute later. However, I know that
there is five minutes make-up time built into the schedule, so it is
still possible that I might make my connection. We’ll just have
to see. In the meantime, it was announced that the café
car was closed, but all that meant was that the food service counter
was closed. Passengers were permitted to remain in the car, and I
chose to stay for a while longer.
Our next stop was Yonkers, where we arrived at 8:47
p.m. When we departed a minute later, we were 51 minutes
late. If we don’t make up any time (or lose any time), we would
arrive at Penn Station at 9:16 p.m., which would be a really close call
for my 9:18 p.m. train.
We proceeded ahead and didn’t come to a stop, as
often happens, before reaching the Spuyten Duyvil bridge, where we
switch from Metro-North to the Amtrak line to Penn Station. We
crossed the Spuyten Duyvil bridge at 8:54 p.m. and proceeded down the
west side of Manhattan without interruption. As we passed the
George Washington Bridge, whose string of lights glistened in the
darkness, I decided to return to my seat, get all my belongings
together, and prepare to detrain immediately upon our arrival at Penn
Station.
As I was repacking my suitcase, a woman came over to
the luggage rack and attempted to take down a very heavy suitcase on
the upper rack. After assisting her in this effort, I asked her
where she had boarded the train. She replied that she had gotten
on in Montreal, but that she had come from Ottawa, where she caught the
first VIA train of the morning – Train #30. This train departs
Ottawa at 6:50 a.m. and is scheduled to arrive at Central Station in
Montreal at 8:38 a.m. However, she told me that they passed
through an area of heavy snow and that, as a result, the train was
delayed and she arrived in Montreal with only about five minutes to
spare before the Adirondack departed!
We continued proceeding down the west side of
Manhattan, and we headed straight into Penn Station without
interruption, coming to our final stop on Track 5 at 9:11 p.m. We
were 46 minutes late, but we had made up five minutes since we departed
from Yonkers. I now had seven minutes to make my connecting NJ
Transit train, and thus was confident that I could make my connection
without having to rush.
I detrained, walked upstairs, and noticed that my
connecting North Jersey Coast Train #3287 would be departing from Track
1. So I went down to that track and boarded the first car of the
train, where I was able to stow my suitcase in a small niche at the
back of the car. Tonight’s Train #3287 consists of nine Comet
cars, including no fewer than three cab cars, with the first five cars
on the train all being Comet V cars. We departed at 9:19 p.m. and
arrived in Secaucus at 9:28 p.m.
I went upstairs and then immediately down to Track
H, where my Pascack Valley Line Train #1645 arrived on time at 9:35
p.m. It was pulled by engine 4012 and included five Comet I and
IB cars. I boarded the last car on the train but noticed that all
forward-facing seats in that car were occupied by at least one
passenger, so I moved to the next car. There, all of the seats
(even the rear-facing seats) were occupied by at least one passenger,
and I noticed that the conductor had opened the third car from the
rear, so I walked into that car, where quite a few seats were available.
I was actually amazed that this train – which did
not exist prior to last October 28th – carries so many passengers (I
would estimate that there were at least 100 passengers onboard).
Previously, there was a long gap between the 8:30 p.m. departure and
the next train, which did not leave until 11:05 p.m. The 9:30
p.m. train obviously satisfies an important need – and it certainly
proved very convenient for me tonight!
We departed one minute late at 9:36 p.m. and arrived
at the Anderson Street station at 9:55 p.m., two minutes late. As
I detrained, I heard the conductor announce that this was the
northbound train to Spring Valley. The reason for the
announcement soon became clear – there were four passengers waiting on
the platform, but they were waiting for southbound Train #1632, which
was scheduled to arrive at the Anderson Street station at 9:59 p.m.,
after passing our train at the Cole siding just south of North
Hackensack.
As I walked back to my car parked several blocks
away, I observed Train #1632 heading south with Comet I equipment (the
train was obviously running just about on time), followed very closely
by a deadhead train with Metro-North Comet V equipment. These are
the first southbound trains on this line after the evening rush hour (a
complaint of some riders is that there are no southbound trains
departing Anderson Street between 4:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., but the
intensity of northbound train service during the rush hour makes this
very difficult to achieve). I drove back to my home in Teaneck,
arriving there about 10:15 p.m., thus concluding a very enjoyable rail
trip to Montreal and Quebec. Everything worked out exactly as
planned – I made all three of my close connections, and I had a great
time in general!
