🔒New Amtrak trains offer Hartford business travelers, tourists direct service to NYC

Two new trains providing one-seat service from Hartford to New York City’s Penn Station have been added to the Hartford Line, prompting cheers from rail advocates and others who have long promoted better connectivity between the neighboring cities.

The trains, part of Amtrak’s Northeast Regional Train Service, stop in New Haven, Bridgeport and Stamford.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin applauded the new service, which he said offers more flexibility in the morning and better connectivity in the evening.

“This new service allows riders to take the train, without changing trains, all the way down to Penn Station,” Bronin said. “And what’s really important is it allows you to get there before 9 a.m. on the first train, and before noon on the second. Whether people are traveling between New York and Hartford for business, or for recreational purposes, the new trains offer new options and a better schedule.”

Bronin has been a major advocate for high-speed rail that connects New York City to Boston. Such a service, he has said, would expand housing and job opportunities in Hartford, by making it possible for someone to work in one of those larger metropolitan areas, while living in less-expensive central Connecticut.

That notion has been made more possible by the pandemic, which led to a wider embrace of remote or hybrid work, where people go into the office on a more infrequent basis.

Bronin said he believes businesspeople who occasionally travel to New York City for work will use the new Amtrak service, which began June 5.

The trip from Hartford to Penn Station takes just under three hours. A weekday ticket from Hartford to New Haven costs about $8, whereas a ticket from Hartford to Penn Station ranges from about $20 to $100, depending on the time of day.

“These trains are convenient for somebody who lives in Hartford, or the Hartford region, but needs to be in New York for a business day, or wants to spend a day down there for pleasure,” Bronin said.

The new service is the result of a partnership between the state Department of Transportation (DOT), Amtrak, Metro-North Railroad and Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

Amtrak runs the service, using a combination of funds from the DOT and its own money.

“Amtrak and DOT evaluated the financial impact of operating this additional Northeast Regional Service, and we found that it would be a financial benefit to the state,” said Shannon Burnham, a spokesperson for the DOT.

Expanded options

To accommodate the new service, the DOT eliminated two shuttle trains that run from Hartford to New Haven. Shuttles, which usually consist of an engine and two coaches, stop in New Haven and allow riders to transfer to another train traveling to New York City.

Meanwhile, schedules on the Metro-North-operated New Haven Line have also been reconfigured, including eliminating the 6:24 a.m. train from New Haven to Grand Central.

Amtrak’s regional trains are more comfortable and larger, with as many as nine coaches, featuring amenities like dining cars.

Not only does the one-seat regional service from Hartford to New York offer more capacity, it allows riders to avoid transferring luggage from one train to another.

From New York City, some riders will travel to other destinations Amtrak serves, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor spans 457 miles from Boston to Washington, D.C.

“It’s providing more than just travel options between Hartford and New York City,” DOT’s Burnham said. “It’s really a connection to the western side of New York City and beyond.”

Prior to June 5, Amtrak ran nine daily trains on the Hartford Line, mostly shuttles that connect to the New Haven Line.

Steve Fainer, a rail advocate who rides trains in the Connecticut Valley daily, said he expects the net gain in service to result in only a small increase in ridership, but believes ridership trends are moving upward.

“I am confident that barring any recurrence of COVID, we will see a record on the Hartford Amtrak service,” Fainer said.

The decision to add the new trains was based on ridership trends and feedback from customers and the state, according to Amtrak.

“We are experiencing record demand for train travel — especially on the Northeast Corridor … and we don’t have enough capacity to meet it,” said Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams.

In November 2022, Amtrak said U.S. ridership rose 89% over 2021 levels to 22.9 million passengers, according to Reuters. Amtrak says it plans to expand dramatically across the United States, adding as many as 39 corridor routes and up to 166 cities by 2035.

Local ridership trends

Train ridership in Connecticut has slowly recovered since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Ridership on Metro-North’s New Haven Line stood at 70.5% of its pre-pandemic levels as of March 2023, according to the DOT. On Shore Line East, which travels between New Haven and New London, ridership bounced back to just 32.8% of its pre-pandemic levels in March.

Those lower ridership levels prompted Gov. Ned Lamont in February to propose budget cuts to both the New Haven and Shoreline East lines, a move that faced some pushback. The cuts were ultimately included in the recently passed state budget.

The ridership outlier has been the Hartford Line, which recovered 80.4% of pre-pandemic passenger counts by March 2023, which increased to 88% as of April, according to Burnham.

The Hartford Line had more than 204,000 riders from the beginning of the year through the end of March.

Bronin said he hopes the additional Hartford service is a prelude to a greater focus on high-speed rail in the United States, which lags behind other developed countries.

“While we can and should celebrate this new service, the fact that a train ride from Hartford to New York takes nearly three hours should focus all of our attention on the importance of increasing speed and performance on the Northeast Corridor,” he said.