4 replies to this topic

[pennyk]

I assume that the January 2015 Fest will be in the Washington DC/Baltimore area. I also assume that since nothing has been posted yet, that the itinerary is still a "work in progress." I am planning to attend and hope that there is no "polar vortex" in the area at that time.

[KevinKorell]

People have been contacting me (and others for some strange reason) for the status of the January 2015 Fest. As you all should know the standard operating procedure by now having been through over 40 such events since 2001, I like to create an itinerary first before officially announcing the event. Because DC Streetcar is not yet in service nor have they provided an idea of their frequencies or travel times, I am still waiting. At this point I expect one day in the Washington, DC area and one involving Baltimore. By necessity since more than likely most of us will base ourselves in the Washington area, the Baltimore day would end up being longer than the Washington day. There is therefore a good possibility that Baltimore could be on Saturday with Washington on Sunday, which allows those who are going home from the Fest on Sunday some time to travel that evening. The Baltimore day would include a trip in one direction on MARC, with return the other way on Amtrak. MARC would also work better on Saturday since there are more trips than on Sunday. I also do NOT expect that there will be full coverage of all rail lines in the Baltmore area because there is not enough daylight in the Winter to cover everything as well as the trips on the Northeast Corridor. So we may do a little of the Baltmore Metro (heavy rail), and on the light rail either the BWI or Cromwell lines, but not both... and I am not sure we would get all the way up to Hunt Valley on LRT either. Consider it most likely will be a representative sampling of each. In Washington, the reasons we're there are the Silver Line and the DC Streetcar. Anything else we might do on the same day would be by request, to cover other Metro lines the participants wish to see. I'll move this post and related thread to a newly created Washington fest forum once the announcement is made and the appropriate web pages created. For anyone asking WHEN that might be, please ask DC Streetcar, not me.

[steve4031]

A quick look on the internet reveals no clear start dates. Test trains were supposed to one rate in October. The Packers of news us not encouraging.

[jacorbett70]

For those coming from New York (only), Amtrak has emailed a three-day Northeast Regional sale to/from Baltimore ($39) or DC ($43) for limited seats - book by 12/4 for travel between January 6-22 (including the MLK Weekend that the fest is proposed). Book using the regular Amtrak site no special code needed, and a few early or late trains are available.

 

Meanwhile, I posted a DC streetcar update as a reply the Transit forum: http://www.on-track-...showtopic=54185

 

I'm not sure when I would be going. Either Friday after work or Saturday AM, possibly directly to BAL if the Saturday itinerary starts with a WAS dep to BAL early enough that Train 67 would be needed to meet the group in WAS.

[KevinKorell]

As you can see I have split off discussion about WARF 2015 pre-dating the announcement into this topic.