I’m in Montreal for the annual APT so this week’s blog posts will be shallower less serious more entertaining than usual. I hope to work in some touristing photos, but that may not happen until next week.
It’s worth noting that my train from New York to Montreal has a scheduled run time of 11 hours and 41 minutes or 334 miles (straight line) or about 370 miles road/train route. It’s a little strange making a direct comparison to the heyday of train travel because the current route (NYC to Albany, up the Hudson, then west to Schenectady, then north through Saratoga and Lake George) includes the track of two old lines. The NYC to Schenectady portion was the main line of the New York Central; Schenectady to Montreal was part of the Delaware & Hudson. The all-NY Central route would be NYC to Utica and then north, which is quite a bit longer in route miles, and in 1920 would have taken about 15 hours and 35 minutes. The D&H route was 10 hours in 1954, with the New York Central handling the trains from Albany south. So in 70 years we’ve slowed by over an hour and a half. A reasonably-fast modern train could cover 370 route miles in well under four hours, but that would require (a) modern-quality track and (b) that the passenger train received priority over frieght.
