Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Jim Cameron Loves Reading Timetables. This Column Is More Interesting Than Doing That. — Cameron on Transportation

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I love reading timetables. Not the new ones on smartphone apps, but the old printed ones. Reading about a train or plane’s journey on paper is almost like taking the ride itself. Growing up in Canada, I was fascinated with the two major passenger railroads, the quasi-government owned “crown corporation” Canadian National Railroad (CNR) and the private Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR). Both ran transcontinental trains from Montreal and Toronto to Vancouver, a journey of 70-plus hours — if they were on time.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

A New Acela This Way Comes — on Amtrak’s Outdated Northeast Tracks: Cameron on Transportation

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I’m a big fan of high-speed trains, which means I often ride Amtrak’s Acela to Boston or Washington. It’s the best train in North America, though it pales in comparison to true HSR (high-speed rail) in Europe or Asia. While Acela can hit a top speed of 150 mph, it does so on only 34 of the 457 miles between DC and Boston. Over the entire run, with congestion and station stops, it only averages about 70 mph. But its 20 daily runs are highly popular, especially with business travelers on expense accounts (the fares are roughly double usual coach fares).

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

U-Pass Program Provides Big Traveling Discount to Public College Students in CT: Cameron on Transportation

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Imagine having an unlimited-rides pass on all public transit in Connecticut, including Metro-North. Then imagine this pass only costs $20 a year. Such is the reality of U-Pass, the transit pass given to almost 15,000 community college and state university students in Connecticut. Not only does U-Pass give them affordable access to mass transit, in some cases the pass is a life changer. “If I didn’t have U-Pass, I wouldn’t be able to go to school,” says Sabrina Morales, a 21-year-old part-time college student from Stratford.

Obituaries
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Customer Service at the Stamford Station — an ‘Ambassador’ But Not Proper Signage: Cameron on Transportation

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Anthony Scasino is an ambassador, not for a foreign country, but for Metro-North. He doesn’t have a consulate or embassy, just the Stamford train station as his headquarters. Scasino is one of six Customer Service Ambassadors (CSA) who work at the railroad’s busiest stations — White Plains, Harlem, 125th Street, Fordham, New Rochelle, Croton-Harmon and Stamford. After a six-month trial, the CSA program is now permanent and may be expanded. Scasino has worked for Metro-North for six and a half years, having previously been a ticket agent at Stamford.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Hell Without the Brimstone on an Amtrak Train Without Air Conditioning: Cameron on Transportation

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It was the railroad trip from hell: the hottest day of the year, stuck for five hours on a sold-out Amtrak train where only half the cars had air conditioning. The ride to Washington days earlier had been uneventful, almost on time and pleasantly cool, even though I’d made the mistake of taking a Northeast Corridor train, not Acela. Its older Amfleet cars, though recently refurbished on the inside, are still 50 years old. But coming back from Washington on a torrid Sunday, by going cheap for the slower, less expensive train, I got what I paid for. Put another way, I didn’t get what I paid for.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

What It’s Like to Be an Engineer Operating Metro-North Trains — Cameron on Transportation

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Bobby has every kid’s dream job: he’s an engineer for Metro-North. But Bobby isn’t his real name because he’s asked for anonymity so he can speak candidly about his work. “I used to love this job,” he says. “But I still take pride in it. Not just anybody can drive a train safely and smoothly.”

Bobby has worked for the railroad for more than 20 years.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Is It Worth Building a Monorail Along the Merritt? — Cameron on Transportation

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What is this fascination people have with monorails? I can’t tell you how often people suggest them as “the answer” to our state’s clogged roads and rails. “Why don’t we build a monorail down the middle of The Merritt Parkway?” asked an architect at a recent meeting. To my astonishment, such an idea was once studied. As lore has it, the state Department of Transportation in the mid-1980s asked local tech giant Sikorsky if a monorail could be built and a plan was submitted.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

ConnDOT’s New Commish Should’ve Been Talking to More Commuters by Now: Cameron on Transportation

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A good boss cares about his customers.  He wants to keep them happy and actively seeks out their feedback.  Such is not the case at the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The CDOT’s new Commissioner, Joseph Giulietti, has missed several important opportunities to interface with riders in his first 100 days in office.  Not that he hasn’t been working. He just hasn’t been meeting with customers. Remember that Giulietti came to his new job after a stint as President of Metro-North and in that role he held a number of “meet-the-commuter” events, handling himself quite well in answering questions and defusing angry riders. A year ago, after leaving the railroad, he became a consultant to T Y Lin’s study of how to improve running times on the railroad to achieve the “30-30-30” dream espoused by the Fairfield Business Council’s Joe McGee.  That $400,000 study, using Giulietti’s input, said it could be done.

Transportation
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Metro-North Timetable Showing It’s Age: You’d Be Slower Too If You Dated Back to the Woodrow Wilson Presidency

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Metro-North rail commuters received a recent spring surprise: a new timetable with slower running times. Rush-hour trains now leave earlier and arrive later, adding anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes to published running times, depending on the length of the trip. But what happened to that 30-30-30 plan for faster trains? Why are the trains running slower, not faster? In one word: repairs.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Finding Parking for Your Train Commute — Now There’s an App for That: Cameron on Transportation

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How can you get people to commute by train if they can’t get to the train station? Those two-wheeled, buff millennials would have us believe we should all bike our way from home to the train. But not all of us are that athletic or inclined to take our lives in our hands wheeling through traffic and bad weather. No, the real solution (at least for now) is car-parking. But with a parking permit wait list of up to seven years in many communities, shouldn’t towns be thinking of building new expensive, decked parking lots?

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Elon Musk’s Idea of ‘Hyperloop’ Trains a Bit Too Loopy: Cameron on Transportation

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Is Elon Musk a brilliant innovator, or is he just smoking dope? Well, we know the answer to the second question as a viral video has shown him puffing (legal) weed on a talk show. The man is under a lot of stress, right? There’s no doubt that Musk’s privately funded ventures in space travel and electric cars are prescient, maybe even profitable someday. But his transportation vision for the Hyperloop has yet to be proven viable.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

Wi-Fi on Trains Should Wait — Coming 5G Will Make Current Wi-Fi Obsolete: Cameron on Transportation

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Will Haskell is 22 years old, and he’s about two months into his first full-time paying job as a state senator representing the 26th District that covers most of interior Fairfield County. His election victory was astonishing in November over Sen. Toni Boucher, who’d been in office since he was born. He has certainly hit the ground running as the sponsor or co-sponsor of 68 proposed bills. Of course, submitting a bill is the easy part. A senator can submit a bill ordering anything, but it may never make it out of the committee stage for a vote.

Business
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Genesee & Wyoming Inc. — A $5B Railroad Conglomerate with HQ in Darien: Cameron on Transportation

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You might not realize it, but Connecticut is home to the world headquarters of a $5 billion international railroad company and you’ll never be able to ride on its trains. In a small office building across from the Darien railroad station sits the offices of Genesee & Wyoming Inc., a “short line” and regional freight railroad conglomerate. The railroad, founded in 1899, still hauls salt on its original 14-mile track in upstate New York. G&W owns 120 railroads on three continents, serving 3,000 customers with more than 16,000 miles of track. A “short-line” railroad, as its name implies, only operates over short distances, sometimes thought of as rail freight’s first and last mile.

Opinion
Jim Cameron Jim Cameron 8-2-16

There Is No Cheap, Quick Fix for Speeding Up Metro-North Trains Cameron on Transportation

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Would you like a faster ride on Metro-North? Who wouldn’t? How about a 30-minute ride from Hartford to New Haven, from New Haven to Stamford or from Stamford to Grand Central? That’s the vision announced by Gov. Ned Lamont in his inaugural address. It’s known as the 30-30-30 plan and sounds good compared to current running times (52 minutes, 55 minutes and 48 minutes, respectively).