As you know, the last weekend of April 2008 represents big news in Salt Lake City: The initiation of FrontRunner commuter rail, and extension of TRAX light rail to the intermodal hub, now known as Salt Lake Central Station.

With Kevin ever so much on the ball, the itinerary of the Rockies RailFest 2011 has been updated to reflect the new rail riding opportunities.

http://pages.prodigy.net/kevinkorell/itin/itinrockies.htm

FrontRunner times will be adjusted later this year when service is extended beyond Ogden to Pleasant View.

Remember those three New York City/New Jersey area fests, the Metro New York RailFest #2, Metro New York RailFest #3, and Garden State RailFest?

Well there have been a number of timetable updates recently. LIRR's have been quite drastic (and they may be even moreso with the next change in June), and NJT's minor, so I've had to make changes to all three fests by mixing and matching things where they will fit based on the new train schedules.

A feature of one of them is a day spent riding the LIRR Port Jefferson line outbound only, walking down to the ferry, going by ferry over Long Island Sound, and then riding the Metro North Waterbury Branch before returning to Manhattan on the New Haven Line. Riding the ferry in between and eliminating full round trips on those rail lines helps us to save some time and relieve the worries about otherwise tight connections that existed before.

Moving the Port Jefferson Branch to a different fest created an opening that was replaced by the Oyster Bay Branch, which also will be a much more comfortable connection in Jamaica. We will ride the LIRR Hempstead, West Hempstead, Long Beach, and Oyster Bay Branches all in one day. The night before (a Friday), there is also a trip that will include riding from Long Island City via Hunterspoint Avenue, then over the Central Avenue Branch to Babylon.

Our three fests also include rides out to Atlantic City, High Bridge and Hackettstown on NJ Transit, a New Haven round trip on Metro North, a round trip to Poughkeepsie by Amtrak in one direction and Metro North's Hudson Line in the other, AirTrain Newark, and even one SEPTA round trip.

For the updated itineraries, see:

Garden State RailFest 200X
Metro New York RailFest #2
Metro New York RailFest #3

Now of course the question remains: Just when do we do all of this?

I made a couple of minor changes to the Southern California RailFest 2009 itinerary for next summer. These include:

• Slight adjustments to Amtrak calling times due to 5/12/08 timetable change.
• Adjustments to RailRunner times in Albuquerque due to new summer Saturday schedule (and to give us more leeway if #4 arrives late).
• Completely changed the San Diego Trolley itinerary because we were finishing up too late at night. Going clockwise now rather than counter-clockwise. Because we leave town 12 Noon the next day, moved the San Ysidro trolley run to the next morning.
• Change in train number for Coaster (but schedule remains the same).

I also considered the options of shifting to other days of the week so that we ride in Albuquerque on a weekday rather than a Saturday. (Remember the itinerary is slave to the thrice-weekly nature of the Sunset Limited.) However, it was found that to accomplish all of the Metrolink routes in the Los Angeles area and Coaster between Oceanside and San Diego, as many weekdays as possible are needed there. So it was best to retain the Sunday morning arrival into LAX on #1, and leave from there on #4 on Friday evening. The itinerary also leaves one morning open in Los Angeles as a mid-Fest break (similar to what was done in Sacramento), or the time could be used if something is missed earlier in the week.

In addition, I suppose I could schedule some streetcar riding in New Orleans as we pass through. We could do a "moonlight" ride assuming we arrive on time on #19, or we could hit one of the lines in the morning before departure of #1. But keep in mind that a Southeast RailFest (probably 2013?) will be restored soon to my web pages once the full St. Charles Line returns, and it will be centered on New Orleans (also including Atlanta, Houston, and Memphis).

You might want to change the RailRunner itinerary. RailRunner's plan is to extend the line to Santa Fe at end of this year (2008), if all is well.

And I surely hope there is more to ride by then. Since the Saturday trains have only been run in the summer months, I may not be able to make a schedule out of it until they post the new Saturday schedule, including Santa Fe.


That has now come true, and I have put up online the Southeast RailFest itinerary now that New Orleans' system is whole again. http://pages.prodigy.net/kevinkorell/serf/home.htm

The thinking lately, however, is that Houston may make this trip too long (and necessitate some uncomfortable calling times), and it might work better paired with a return to Dallas (to ride the Blue Line extension to Rowlett as well as the Green and Orange Lines, all of which should be in service by 2014)... In that same trip we could also do the Little Rock RiverRail streetcar operation and also return to St. Louis to ride the new Shrewsbury branch of Metrolink LRT.

Kevin,

I am going to have to buy a new carpet, and it is all your fault. I was looking at the Southern California fest, and I drooled all over the place. The cats almost drowned.
Talk about foaming . . . .

As long as you don't flood out the Chicago subways, what you do in your home is your business...

I wonder if Amtrak would allow a Denver - Raton - Chicago routing for the return trip using the Denver - Raton Thruway bus. If they do that could possibly add a slight bit of variety to the slog between Denver and Chicago. But it does add a day to the whole itinerary

Oh, does Raton, NM have a network of rail rapid transit routes we can ride while we're waiting?

They used to have a Denver-Raton bus connection to/from the east on the SWC, presumably for the Kansas City-Denver market, but that has disappeared. So Raton would be a 7+ hour layover.