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As we have passed the Louisiana-Texas RailFest 2018, it is time to refresh this thread and discuss our new future.
Regarding Winter events, attention is still being paid to Boston, where our presence hinges on the completion of the Royal Junction siding in Falmouth, NE so that we can take a same-day Boston-Brunswick round trip on the Downeaster with minimal layover time. Hope continues that this will be completed, and the extra service implemented, before mid-January 2019. Other Winter events remain to be determined.
Summer...…. I've spoken before about the Big Three trips involving Texas in order to get the many transit opportunities not only in that state but neighboring Oklahoma and Arkansas. Well now that we have completed MTRF 2017 and LTRF 2018, that leaves one more. What remains in this area are the following:
Oklahoma City Streetcar (scheduled to open late 2018)
Metro Streetcar in Little Rock (in service)
TexRail (Fort Worth to DFW International Airport, scheduled to open late 2018)
El Paso Streetcar (scheduled to open late 2018)
Delmar Loop Trolley in western St. Louis is STILL not yet open as of late July 2018, but there are always possibilities to stop there to ride it as part of a trip passing through there on the Texas Eagle.
As you can see above, a lot of new opportunities await, assuming all of the above new properties meet the expectations. El Paso Streetcar is the newest one to this thread. With the tri-weekly nature of the combined Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle, this can be done with an approximate 26-hour layover (arrive around 1 PM westbound, depart around 3 PM eastbound the next day), which leaves ample time to do the streetcar, and 1 hotel night, even with a late arrival in town. Of course the correct day of the week has to be chosen for this given the Amtrak schedule. So far, and always subject to change, I have 2 possible itineraries. The shorter one would be Oklahoma City, Little Rock, & St. Louis. The longer one would be El Paso, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, & St. Louis. I need to also work in a 24-hour stopover into them at Fort Worth to ride TexRail. For the El Paso involved trip, because of the Amtrak less then daily schedule at El Paso, to stop at Fort Worth creates a problem with necessary visits on weekdays to other places, so something else would have to go.
The other possibility for next Summer trips would involve going north of the border into Canada. We haven't done so as a group since we went to Vancouver in 2010, and much new has been added in the Toronto and Montreal areas since our 2004 and 2006 visits respectively. Toronto has a lot new to offer, including the Union-Pearson Express to/from the airport, the free airport people mover at the end of it, and the newest addition to the Line 1 subway to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. There was one new streetcar line added (the 514 Cherry). Also, some GO TRANSIT commuter rail lines that previously were rush hour only now offer all day hourly service along a portion of those lines. So one can now ride the Stouffville Line as far as Unionville, the Kitchener Line out to Mt. Pleasant, and the Barrie Line to Aurora. What I did was to take the previous Montreal Fest and added several days in Toronto (including one to ride the Maple Leaf), and connected them with a VIA Rail trip in one direction. Including one day to ride the westbound Maple Leaf and one day to return from Canada on the southbound Adirondack, the entire Fest would take 7 days. There would be 2-1/2 days of rail activities in the Toronto area, and 2 full days to ride the rails in the Montreal area. Furthermore, there is another light rail property set to open by the end of 2018 in the Waterloo Region, accessed in both directions by VIA Rail from Toronto. Doing this would add another day and overnight to the Fest. The new Toronto-Montreal itinerary is here . It includes the extra day trip to Kitchener, however my research has found that there are not too many hotels along the abuilding light rail line, so it may be expendable if staying in the area of Waterloo or Kitchener is not feasible.
Another place where a new streetcar line will soon beckon us is Milwaukee. Its The HOP Streetcar is tentatively set to open by the end of 2018, at least its M-Line (Mainline). A second line, the L-Line (which goes to the Lake, and whose route is shaped like an L) will open in 2019. Milwaukee can easily be added to any Fest that passes through Chicago, utilizing the frequent Hiawatha Service trains.
Let's now explore what we can do in the Southeast. SunRail in Orlando is expanding this week to Poinciana (with the other end's planned extension to DeLand still pending). Tampa's TECO Line Streetcar has a very small and walkable extension built since our 2008 visit, probably not worth going back for riding a few blocks unless we need to add a day to a Florida based trip. The Gold Coast has MiamiMover at the Miami Airport, and the Airport branch of Metrorail open for a few years already. Also expected someday is relocation of the Amtrak station to the Airport complex. Nothing new with TriRail. Brightline is now open between Miami and West Palm Beach, so it might beckon us for a spin. In other Southeastern states, we could return to Charlotte, since the LYNX Blue Line has now doubled in length with its northern extension opened earlier this year, and the first phase of Citylynx Gold Line is open. Atlanta Streetcar has also gone into service since we were there last in 2011. A Fest involving Florida likely could not also include Atlanta given the need to go all the way up to Washington or do Thruway buses and overnight connections to get between them. Charlotte and Atlanta also are hard to pair up given the wee hours calling of the Crescent in both directions through Charlotte.
Our trip to the West Coast at PCRF 2016 was sort of a "clean-up" sweep of things that had not yet been open yet on our previous 2009 & 2010 trips. Since then, in the Seattle area we had just missed the opening of the Angle Lake southern extension of the Sound Transit light rail, and there are plans to extend the system further in three different directions so I don't think we will get back there anytime soon. In Portland, nothing new coming, except the proposal to extend light rail from downtown to Tigard. Years down the road. In the Los Angeles area, the Crenshaw Line is under construction and will be the next light rail line we can ride, likely a few years off long after it opens for business. The Angels Flight funicular is up and running now, and hopefully it stays that way for a long time. Now moving to the Bay Area, there is SMART, which while open does not have its Larkspur segment open yet allowing connections with the ferry, nor its northernmost second phase to Cloverdale. BART has been extended to Warm Springs, and further extension to Berryessa has now been delayed to 2020 or 2021. So that would be a number of years off. Muni & Caltrain haven't changed, nor has the VTA light rail system in San Jose.
So there always remains plenty to do and plenty to put together into future plans.
