Well with all the hype and with almost 3 months since the service began, one might think it should be a rousing success by now. I predicted it would not, given the hours that they chose to run these trains.
The only possible round trips one can take would either be on a weekday (where the trains are deadheaded between Springfield and Greenfield) whereby one would need to stay somewhere in Greenfield overnight, or on a weekend by staying in Springfield and either going north in the morning to Greenfield then back, or arriving into Greenfield in the evening then taking the short run back to Springfield. To do it in daylight now that it's Standard Time, I chose the morning.
I wanted to do this, just to check things out. It would not be "new trackage" for me given I have ridden the Vermonter before over this route.
When I boarded Train 400 at Springfield on Sunday morning, the crew looked surprised to see me. In fact, had I not been there, they would have been carrying zero passengers. I never saw the crew again. I assumed correctly that they had auto-scanned me since my identity was pretty obvious from the passenger count. Just like the Vermonter, the Valley Flyers back out of Springfield northbound and back into Springfield southbound.
We made stops at Holyoke and Northampton, but no business at either. Arrival at Greenfield was on time. The conductor now came to me and correctly assumed I was headed back the other way. He told me we had a little over 15 minutes and I could either remain on the train or leave my luggage on the train and walk around. It was cold, but I did walk over to the modern transportation center (which I found to be closed on weekends). I was back aboard in plenty of advance time before the 9:15 AM departure.
This time the conductor came to me just to put a seat check over me. I offered my phone to scan my digital ticket, but that's when he told me I was already scanned. More passengers were expected for this trip, and he knew I was going to New Haven. Alas, as Train 461 left Greenfield, I was again its only passenger -- well outnumbered by the two-man onboard crew and the engineer.
At Northampton, a surprise.... real live people! I counted about 10 people who boarded there. Northampton is probably where passengers would be expected most on the Knowledge Corridor as it's near several colleges. Holyoke, on the other hand, was a big zero -- we stopped briefly but with no business I doubt we were stopped more than 20 seconds. Soon we backed into Springfield, and we picked up quite a few more passengers. Established service from this point on. Ridership was as expected at stations down the line; by Hartford most seats were occupied by at least one person. As we finally arrived into New Haven, you would never know that this train had been my private chariot for the 40 miles from Springfield to Greenfield and the 19 miles from Greenfield to Northampton.
It's been called the Knowledge Corridor for the reason of the colleges and universities along the way. But until they actually serve those stations at a time when the college students and workers need to travel, it can't and won't get many more people other than railfans like me taking this jaunt while it lasts. The so-called pilot has to be improved before its continuance is decided. While I get that those making the schedule chose to arrange it so that some time could be spent in New York City (via connections at New Haven), it is doubtful that many really care about riding that far. With an all day complement of Amtrak trains now running on the Hartford Line, surely others could be chosen to extend to Greenfield. And to amply serve say, Northampton at decent hours and on days school is in session, those weekend short runs like the one I took need to be offered 7 days a week and at more convenient times of day.
At the same time, the "last mile" should be considered with some kind of Thruway type connections to get people between Amtrak and their destinations. After it's the so-called "Millennials" that Amtrak seems to covet , and some of those may very well be the college students they should be serving.
