DOT proposes rail service for Brookfield, extending Danbury Line to MA

Recently, the CT Department of Transportation announced their plans for the Meter-North Danbury Line, which includes a new station in Brookfield and extending the service to New Milford and beyond.

Aaron Boyd at the Brookfield Patch has the details:

Representatives from the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) and URS engineering consultants held an information session in Brookfield Town Hall on Wednesday night to introduce four alternatives for improving the Danbury rail line. One potential option includes extending passenger service up to New Milford, which would include a stop in Brookfield.

Two possible locations in Brookfield were considered: on Pocono Road across from the fire station and on Whisconier Road on the site of the old train station, behind the Brookfield Craft Center. The early consensus is leaning toward the latter, as it would be in walking distance of the Town Center District (TCD), a proposed pedestrian business center with residential apartments surrounding Four Corners.

A new station would be constructed behind the old station (used by the Craft Center as a wood turning and glass blowing workshop), with an elongated parking lot with space for 200 vehicles. Representatives are in talks with the Craft Center about using their entryway to the proposed lot and have assured that the old station building would not be touched.

[...]

Extending the passenger line to New Milford would require reconstructing the tracks all the way down to Danbury, as passenger cars move at a much higher speed than the commercial trains that currently run on the line. Reconstructing 14 miles of railway, including installing parallel tracks in portions, would cost approximately $200 million, according to DOT Transportation Planner Andrew Davis, who is also the project manager on the Danbury Line Improvement Program. "You could walk faster than a passenger train could go" running on unimproved rails, Davis said.

Along with improving the existing rail, the DOT and URS are also proposing switching to electric trains, rather than diesel, which are cleaner and faster, but would cost an additional $1.5 million per mile ($21 million over 14 miles). Add to that the cost of new trains and extensive bridgework to raise at least 10 overpasses (at $10 million per bridge, by Davis' estimation), and, "It's an expensive proposition, given the condition of the tracks," Davis admitted.

The other alternatives being considered in the plan are to electrify the existing passenger service on the Danbury Line to South Norwalk. "If you're going to electrify any of it, it'd be good to go all the way to South Norwalk," in Davis' opinion, though that will depend on funding.

[...]

The project is also considering extending passenger service another 38 miles north of New Milford to Pittsfield, MA.

The Housatonic Railroad Company (HRRC), who owns the railroad right-of-way and would be key to any agreement extending the Danbury Line, recently sent out a press release stating that they are studying passenger service from Pittsfield to New York City, as well.

Though HRRC currently operates commercial trains, the company is conducting ridership studies and researching the viability of combining freight and passenger service through Western Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Although the proposals are intriguing, given the history of the DOT, lets just say that I'm not very optimistic about their proposals becoming reality (within my lifetime).