[78-L] ARSC^

[Philip Carli]

Unfortunately the good ol' New York Central itself (now Conrail) is responsible for much of the delays on the Empire Corridor.  When NYC passenger service ceased in the 60s they ripped up half the trackage to save maintenance costs -- it used to be a 4-track way all the way to Chicago -- and since Amtrak leases the way from Conrail, passenger servirces are now secondary to freight rather than the reverse (as it was).  That turns the Lake Shore Limited from being a true "limited" or crack train into the slowest on the run, since it comes the farthest and has the greatest opportunities for being shunted.  It's nice to feel that people are secondary to a train of construction materials, or worse, empty boxcars returning home.  (On the Rochester-NY regular trains, rather than the Lake Shore, I've usually been stopped between Syracuse and Utica, where some of the way has been cut to single-track and sidings.) William K. Vanderbilt's 1870s contemptuous blast about the Central's responsibilities still holds true, here and in US business generally: "the public be damned!"

(There might be some track restored for high-speed service which keeps getting talked about. I hope for it, but I don't hold my breath.)

PC
________________________________________
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of DanKj [MLK402 at verizon.net]
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 12:26 AM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] ARSC^

   I took 2 or 3 round-trips on Megabus tween NYC and Buffalo, about 3-4 years ago ... each trip was quite pleasant, one of
them cost $1 each way and another was $24 or so..  Buses very clean, no diesel smells, hardly any noise.  One driver treated
my broken-legged self like a king, making sure I got the front seat all to myself, putting my bag up for me, etc.  They even
had free internet service - slow but free, and AC plugs.  On one trip, there were hardly any passengers besides me and a
dozen girls travelling in a pack. They brought "Sex and The City" DVDs, which the driver gladly played on the TV system.  7
hours of that was a bit much - good thing I had earplugs!    The Buffalo-NYC trips actually start in Toronto, so there's
usually a load of Canucks who get off at the airport. Those buses were nearly new, then - maybe they're filthy roach-motels
by now.

 The last time I took Amshak to New York WAS the 'last time'.  Train was almost 2 hours late getting to Buffalo, then every
freight train was put ahead of us all the way to NYC, making an eight-hour trip into 14. Nasty (and I mean NASTY) employees
made onboard life miserable. The Penn Station elevators and escalators were all dead, too, just to end a rotten trip
appropriately !   The return trip was 4 hours late, as I recall - they used us to rescue another train with a burned-out
engine. (Just checked the status of those trains for the last few days, and many were on-time or even early. Glad to see
they've improved)



----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] ARSC^


> Ah, the good old days. My wife and I regularly used Greyhound and Gray Coach
> (long gone, I believe) when travelling to Montreal and to New York, and the
> smell of diesel is still a nostalgic one. And I'm happy to leave it at that.
>
> My first trip to New York in 1968 was by bus both ways. Coming back, I had a
> pile of records (so what else is new?) that I put on the rack and covered with
> a newspaper. Customs barely looked..on the other hand, they herded every black
> passenger off the bus at the Peace Bridge and did detailed inspections.
> Interesting.
>
> dl
>
> On 5/5/2011 11:44 PM, Philip Carli wrote:
>> Ecch and double-ecch.  I'm with you on that.
>>
>> One trouble with buses in my recent experience is that many bus travellers seem to give even less of a cuss about
>> courtesy than air travellers; the last time I took a Greyhound, contempt and desperation hovered like a cloud over the
>> whole company, and some smokers tried to light up despite the driver's draconian warning that he would pull over and
>> leave them in a cornfield east of Nowhere.  An obviously disturbed woman was forcibly placed in the seat adjacent to me
>> because she had started yelling from her original seat "I ain't sittin' next to no junkie" over and over.  When she sat
>> next to me she rocked and swayed back and forth, tonelessly humming and writing in very small script on an
>> already-scribbled notepad.  I had to take a bus because it was logistically the only way I could get to where I needed
>> to; logistics take a back seat to finances for most bus travellers, though, as many can't afford anything else and are
>> compelled to travel that way.  Greyhound does very little to make the experience at all dignified, which might inspire
>> people's better natures. It's a hard life to depend on buses for long-distance transport.

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