63 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

Some changes made in the past couple of weeks to Future Fests:

More restaurants added to Southern California RailFest. More are on the way shortly. Also, the itinerary was altered to allow for an extra day in the Los Angeles area, to maximize our time on the rails while still providing time for rest room and eating breaks. Small alterations reflect timetable and train number changes at Metrolink.

Pacific Northwest RailFest itinerary was shortened by a day, with the removal of Vancouver. Insteaed of two days in Vancouver, one day was added to the Seattle area to allow time for new future lines such as South Lake Union Streetcar and the Central Link LRT.

A new Canadian West Railfest has been added, whose itinerary will include Edmonton and Calgary (two Alberta cities that have light rail systems), and the displaced Vancouver. One direction of travel via Toronto and Via Rail's CANADIAN, while the other direction would be via Seattle, making use of the Cascades Corridor and the EMPIRE BUILDER.

Edited by KevinKorell, 08 January 2006 - 11:33 PM.

[Gswager]

I grew up in S. Ca and familiar with the area, esp. with commuter rails which I still do whenever I visit. I currently living in eastern NM. If you need some help for RailFest in S. CA, let me know. Also, I look forward to try out the RailRunner once it runs, probably this spring.

[KevinKorell]

Everything I have worked so hard to create the past couple of years is suddenly nothing but a dream. Figuring my employment and work shifts would last forever, I went ahead and created enough trips to fill several years of fests. Without elaborating here, things did not turn out that way. Aside from what we do on the east coast, relatively close to New York & Philly, the future is quite cloudy right now. I'll be getting things going soon for our NJ RailFest on March 18th. Unless more surprises come my way, my schedule should be open that day. Stay tuned!

[KevinKorell]

Updated potential Florida RailFest based on my recent trip there. Restaurant listing greatly expanded to include everything that was observed from TriRail, MetroRail, and MetroMover. Itinerary was also updated with new TriRail schedule and train numbers, more open hotel choice in Gold Coast area, better locations for meals, and an added overnight in Jacksonville giving us 20 hours in that city instead of the previous four.

I have plenty of new hotel information too, but that will have to wait until I complete Montreal, which is under three months away.

[KevinKorell]

Itinerary for potential SoCal fest was edited to include times for RailRunner commuter rail trains in Albuquerque now that a draft timetable is available. Of course this is subject to change. I am hoping anyhow that by the time we ever get to take this trip, they will have added Saturday service since if our arrival into ABQ on a Friday night is late, we don't have the luxury of riding those trains the next morning under the draft schedule, which is weekdays only.

[KevinKorell]

A word on the remaining fests originally scheduled for 2006:

OTOL Montreal RailFest 2006 is definitely on. From the research most potential participants are doing on their own, it's being discovered that this may turn out to be quite costly for many of you. Keep in mind that you get credit for particpating in the fest, whether you join us for a quick spin on one train, or go wire to wire throughout the entire 6-day event.

My work situation has changed again. I'm being extended beyond June 30th through the summer and much of the fall. I made a vacation during the week of our Montreal fest a condition for my agreeing to stay.

However, this also means that plans for the Mid Atlantic RailFest for Baltimore & Philadelphia have to be put on the back burner for now. Today I have changed the website to remove all traces of the originally planned dates in August 2006.

The revised homepage will lead you to other pages that have been changed.

Unfortunately, although due to the uncertainty of my situation I had not yet moved this fest into the area of working fests on my website, one person sent me e-mail that he already made hotel reservations for Baltimore. I hope nobody else has done so, and I regret the inconvenience to you if you did.

We can handle this rescheduling several ways. It could be postponed to the summer of 2007. Or we can have it around the same time in August of 2006, only on weekdays. If that happens it may have to be broken up into two separate fests, perhaps taking place during two consecutive weeks in August. This is only a shot in the dark, as those who can't get vacation time off from work might find it difficult to attend.

Let me know if you prefer the above ideas, or have a better one in mind.

[KevinKorell]

OTOL Big Apple RailFest (BARF) 2007 is now posted. As usual it will be the second weekend in January. It will feature rides on many subway lines throughout New York City. Most of this trip will be underground, save for a few glimpses of the sky from Brooklyn's Culver Line or from the Manhattan Bridge.

If you had seen my itinerary before, it has been heavily revised. I realized when working out the times that we didn't have enough riding before lunchtime, and we had too much afterwards. So the Bronx and Washington Heights portions were moved from the end to the beginning of the journey.

Saturday's lunch will be in Jamaica Center; dinner will be at Herald Square or Penn Station, depending on what the group wishes to do.

Sunday's commuter rail excursion will be the entire Metro North Harlem Line to Wassaic and return. Late lunch (2 PM) will be at the Galleria at White Plains. Dinner on your own after we break up at Grand Central Terminal.

Itinerary here.

Home Page is here.

[KevinKorell]

I have made some updates to the future fest for Chicago. Note that a Fest in Chicago alone may never happen, as long as we continue to visit there and do things on the way to other places further away during our layovers. So as we ride different lines every time we pass through town, I take things away from this potential fest. Nevertheless, I have made the following updates:

• Separated the future Windy City RailFest 200X from the past Windy City RailFest 2003.
• Moved everything from the old "chicagofest" pages to the two new ones above.
• Changed all hyperlinks in the "History of Previous Fests" for every fest after Summer 2003 to reflect the new pages above.
• Modified potential WCRF to reflect the change of the Cermak Branch of the Blue Line to the Pink Line.
• Changed times to reflect new schedules on the remaining Blue Line and the new Pink Line.
• During WCRF 2003, CTA's logo looked like this. At Eagle RailFest 2005, it was this. Now, it has changed once more to this.

[KevinKorell]

And that's not all the planning I did this week for you folks. I also did some restaurant searching work for a future summer Metro New York Fest in Long Island. Destination was Hempstead, NY, where we will walk about one mile from the Hempstead train station to the West Hempstead train station. I redid the restaurant listing so that Hempstead is broken into four distinct segments:

1) Hempstead train station/bus station area
2) Downtown Hempstead along Main Street
3) Hempstead along Fulton Avenue
4) West Hempstead train station area

I returned from West Hempstead station, changing trains at Valley Stream to return directly to Manhattan.

On our outbound trip, we also checked out the Atlantic Terminal/Atlantic Center complex in Brooklyn, and took our LIRR train from there directly to Hempstead.

Restaurant list for this fest has been updated here.

[KevinKorell]

I had planned a whole bunch of day trips similar to the above, in order to scout out restaurants and other details in advance of possible fests in the New York area. Problem is, I ran out of summer.

However a week before we had our Mid atlantic RailFest in August, I did manage to get to New Haven, CT to check out Union Station in detail. On my list of scouting trips to take, that leaves only Waterbury, CT still on the to-do list.

As for the other Future Fests, with my personal future still hanging in the balance, nothing is etched in stone at this time. I can say with 90% certainty that we should be able to pull off another weekend in New York City in mid-January 2007. I did add a little something to the itinerary, of course pending my ability to do it. I'd like to take a Friday night trip in Queens to cover the inner portion of the 7 train, as well as riding the Lower Montauk Branch of the LIRR from Long Island City to Jamaica. Only one train runs along this route, so it is timed appropriately.

I have removed North Carolina as a possible destination for our group. This is temporary, until the light rail opens in Charlotte to replace the tourist trolley.

And a big project I plan to tackle within the next couple of weeks is to tear apart the NoCal/Rockies RailFest. Realizing that two weeks may be way too long for some people to be away from work or family, I plan to break these into two shorter fests. Northern California, assuming the majority use Amtrak from East Coast points, would be shortened from 14 to 12 days, while a Rockies Railfest (to include Salt Lake City and Denver) would be roughly 8 days including travel (which is the exact length of our past Eaqle RailFest from 2005). While Denver and Salt Lake City would have served to break up our trips to and from California, I feel that there is more than enough in California itself to keep us busy. And likewise, the options are growing in both Salt Lake City (TRAX, and soon FrontRunner) and Denver (light rail expands to 6 different routes this fall, plus we would have time to add a tourist trolley, and there is possibility of Northwest Rail to Boulder if we wait a few years). I will inform you when these updates have been made.

Finally, some of us discussed either in Sunday Chat or in person the possibility of a two-day trip to Springfield, MA and return. This would not be a fest, just a gathering of members riding Amtrak with one overnight stay. Although this would have to be done on two consecutive weekdays due to my schedule, I think we could pull it off sometime this fall given the success of our MARF event in August. The Future Fests section now has a link to the Springfield trip.