It's about that time where we start settling in on a venue and plans for our winter meet. I expect once again to do this over the long MLK holiday weekend, which has worked out well in the past. As for the location, here are the issues.
I've long said that I would like to return to Boston, for several reasons:
- Boston would be logically next if we keep to the practice of visiting East Coast cities. Since we were there last for NERF 2013, we went to Philadelphia/New Jersey/New York in 2014, Washington in 2015, New York in 2016, Washington & Virginia in 2017, and New York again in 2018.
- Track and station improvements have taken place along the Fairmount Line, necessitating our first re-visit since 2002.
- In the Fall of 2016, the Fitchburg Line was extended to Wachusett, so we need to take a spin to the new end of that line.
- Following work to build a new siding at Royal Junction, all 5 daily Downeaster round trips to run as far as Brunswick. Group has previously only been as far as Portland. Not possible to have reasonable layover with the existing 3 trips that now run as far as Brunswick.
Here is the latest news I received from the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority (NNEPRA) regarding that last bullet. So I was hoping that the promise for the siding work and institution of 5 round trips to Brunswick would take place by the end of 2018, so that we would be able to ride this in January. I was told that this will happen on weekdays only starting next month (November 2018), but for weekends, it will not happen until the spring or summer of 2019. That makes doing this on a weekend Fest in the winter of 2019 impossible.
This leaves us with a few options, open for discussion here.
- Go to Boston anyhow, doing the other above activities, and add more in Boston to fill out the second day.
- Go to Boston anyhow, but cut back to one day of activities in Boston area. Fill out second day by traveling by Amtrak, perhaps via New Haven to ride Hartford Line. Very difficult to do Hartford Line on commuter equipment on a weekend, especially over the whole route to Springfield, but could possibly just go to Hartford & back.
- Go to Boston anyhow, but cut back to Saturday only in Boston area. Fill Sunday by riding Amtrak #449 Lake Shore Limited to Springfield, see new Springfield station, and then Shuttle #465 and Regional #165 back to New York or other points south.
- Meet in another city (although there really isn't much new elsewhere along the east coast)…. keeping in mind too that the days are shorter and colder so outdoor activities would be kept to a minimum.
Please discuss away, and remember that "doing whatever the group decides" will not help us to reach a decision. When I have more time I can work out some itineraries for what these might look like.