25-11-01 PHOTOS: Stamford

Recently I have discovered that travel to and from Stamford has above average value for railfan purposes. Not only is it the gateway to Metro North's Connecticut branch lines and related museums, but tickets functionally cost the same as one to/from New York City. As as Acela stop one can get close to an hour of additional ride time for no extra cost. Of course the big issue is blandness of Metro North and its infrastructure, but Stamford is at least good for a couple visits before it turns stale. So sit back and enjoy a parade of M8's along with a couple Amtrak trains.  

I mostly slept on the way up, but I did manage to catch ACS-86 #668 in the push position on one of the push-pull Regionals. 

My Regional Train 160 was able to traverse the newly opened eastbound HAROLD duckunder track. Built as part of the East Side Access project, the HAROLD duckunders eliminate conflicting movements between Amtrak trains to New Englande and LIRR Main Line trains. The eastbound duckunder was opened first to support the temporary closure of East River Tunnel Line 2 for rehabilitation.

The weather that day was absolutely fantastic and even side window photos from the train, like SS28 GREEN here in Cos Cob, looked great.

I'm not sure if my Regional Train 160 was late, but at Stamford it had to wait on track #4 while an all stops local to Grand Central crawled out of the yard. As T160 was able to depart it passed the inbound GCT express from New Haven which provides local riders with a timed transfer at New Haven.

While the Stamford Station is a great location for photos I got a tip off about another spot a bit south of down behind a DoubleTree hotel. The nearby glass covered office towers provided a natural fill lighting at this time of morning. Here is a montage of Metro North / CDoT M8 MU trains. West of Stamford the NHL sees 4 trains per hour, 2 express and 2 local.

Because of the timed transfers the westbound local and express trains tend to race each other out of the station, although meets between east and westbound trains are not uncommon.

I also managed to catch the singular weekend Acela Next Gen round trip that was operating that day with trainset #12 seaturing power cars #2133 and #2124. 

Here are a few more M8 photos from the DoubleTree lot, which also provides views into the west end of SS34 STAMFORD interlocking. 

Although far fewer in number than the Metro North runs, Amtrak Regionals also made the occasional appearance, like westbound Regional Train 195 with ACS-86 #603 and eastbound Regional Train 162 with ACS-86 #667.

Back at the Stamford Station the Metro North Track Inspection Vehicle (TIV) was parked on Track #7. On my New Canaan trip this spot had been occupied by an SRS Doodlebug.  I had previously encountered the TIV in New Haven while laser scanning the tracks. 

Due to the local/express timed transfer taking up station tracks 3 and 5, my westbound Acela was routed onto track #2 at the last minute. The New Haven express was lead by new-looking 9700-series CDoT cars. The Acela was classic set #17 with power car #2011. 

Well that's all for my single purpose trip to Stamford. I have a feeling I'll wind up here again for some combination of the North Norwalk Signal Tower Museum and the Danbury Railroad Museum. Check back next time as I head out to the Amtrak Harrisburg Line for the Thanksgiving weekend.