THE HIGH-SPEED RAILROAD NEVER BUILT… 120 YEARS AGO

What happens when a great transportation idea gets ahead of itself?  Consider the story of the greatest American railroad that never got built.

We are all familiar with The Twentieth Century Limited and The Broadway Limited, the crack trains of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads that ran for decades between New York and Chicago.

Those daily trains defined deluxe, pampering passengers with plush Pullman cars, fine dining and even an on-train barber shop.  But they each took up to 20 hours to make the run because they took different, circuitous routes.  The NY Central followed the “water level route” north to Albany, then across upstate New York and down the coast of Lake Erie.  The Pennsylvania RR’s “Broadway Limited” (which would start in 1912) journeyed south to Philadelphia, then west to Pittsburgh and beyond.

But way back in 1905, inventor Alexander Miller had a better idea:  build a brand new, flat and straight interurban railroad that would run directly between the two cities, The Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad.

When building a high speed railroad, straight is better

Even over 120 years ago Miller knew the importance of straight-running tracks to achieve and hold high speeds, a lesson we in Connecticut wish they’d learned before building the New Haven RR along our winding coastline.

Miller’s train would be “faster than the limited” and make the run between NYC and Chicago in just 10 hours for $10 a ticket (worth about $380 today).  Powered by the new marvel of electricity, the train could operate at a third the cost of steam engines.  And by running in a straight line the 743 mile route would be 168 to 237 miles shorter than its competitors.  In principal, it was brilliant.  And the timing was perfect.

Mind you, this railroad’s interurban cars (think trolley cars on steroids) might not be as plush, but they would average 70+ mph thanks to the almost flat grade of one percent and no pesky grade crossings.  There would also be few stops as the route would bypass all major cities.  And this train would be fast… 100 mph on the straight-aways!

The electric rail cars that could do 100+ mph

Two million dollars worth of stock was issued with shareholders promised first priority for thousands of potential jobs.  Railroads were the dot-coms of the era, and people rushed to invest.  With no bonded debt, the company’s prospectus promised stock dividends of 14% on top of the shares’ appreciation. You just couldn’t lose!

Construction began from west to east, as the railroad would open in stages to help pay for itself and further building toward New York.  A mighty four track railroad, akin to Metro-North, was envisioned and it was hoped that the project would be completed in just ten years.  Spur lines would be constructed to serve the cities by-passed by the “air line”.

Then, reality set in with the depression of 1907 – 1908.  Construction got as far as Chesterton IN, about 50 miles east of Chicago, when the money started to run out.  The engineering of this mighty railroad was just too expensive.

Shareholders revolted when news came that the railroad’s officers were getting fat paychecks as the coffers were drained.  A hoped-for bailout by British banks never happened.  Those shareholders lost everything.  And the impending arrival of automobiles might have doomed the line anyway.  Even The Twentieth Century and Broadway Ltd eventually succumbed to the competition of true “air lines”.

But for a brief moment, a century ago, a dream almost became a reality in the greatest railroad that never was.

 

CT'S $1.6 BILLION RAIL PROMISE

The Governor and the CDOT tried to make some “big news” about our trains last week.  Here’s how most media summarized the story:  “Connecticut has broken ground on the $1.6 billion TIME-1 upgrade of the New Haven Line, targeting speeds of up to 90 mph, improving service by 2035.”

Maybe you saw the media coverage and said “Wow.  Great news”.  Or maybe you had a sense of déjà vu and asked yourself two questions:  “Haven’t I heard this promise before?” (yes) and “Should I believe this promise, delivered in an election year?” (no).

As a journalist I was disappointed (but not surprised) that almost no media asked those same questions, instead just regurgitating the press release.  So let me try to separate the facts from the hype.

TIME FOR CT PROJECT:           Your sense of déjà vu was correct as the Governor and CDOT made this same announcement five years ago.  And their promises then have yet to be delivered. 

In fact it was in 2019 that Governor Lamont promised us a 30 minute train ride from New Haven to Stamford. The fastest trains today are the early morning super-expresses which run non-stop in 45 minutes.  Better, but not what was promised.

WILL THIS REALLY COST $1.6 BILLION ?:    Yes, and it’s not yet fully funded.  There’s money so far only for Phase One, just $340 million, to rebuild the catenary, fix one bridge and upgrade tracks and signaling.  And this Phase One covers merely three miles of track.  

Stratford RR Station

Phases Two and Three, which bring the biggest improvements, are not yet funded.  Transportation money from the current White House is drying up so the prospect of the additional $1.3 billion that’s needed seems to me like wishful thinking.  In the tech world they call such claims “vapor-ware”.

So why announce a project that won’t be finished for nine years when funding is still uncertain?  Because it’s an election year.

Don’t get me wrong.  This work is necessary and decades overdue.  It will make the railroad safer and maybe even faster… assuming the money is found and the work gets done.  But I predict it will all cost more and take longer than they hope… or are willing to admit.

FINISHED BY 2035 ?:       This will really take nine years?  Yes, and probably longer.  Consider projects like the Walk Bridge in Norwalk, first announced by then-Governor Malloy in 2014, with construction finally beginning in 2023 with an expected completion now in 2029.  Initial cost estimates of $465 million have since doubled.  I’ve been calling it “the billion dollar bridge” since first writing about it 12 years ago. 

Rebuilding a working railroad is expensive and slow.  If Metro-North could shut down the railroad completely, work would go faster… but that is impossible.  So expect a lot of delays for the next decade.

SPEEDS OF 90 MPH ?:    This is the promise that most angers me because it’s just not true. It’s just like Amtrak’s claim that its new Acela NextGen runs 165 mph.  Yes… for about 10 miles in New Jersey and a few more in Rhode Island, but not the full trip from Boston to Washington.

And Connecticut’s supposed “90 mph” trains… they’ll achieve that for a three mile straight stretch between Stratford and Bridgeport, but almost nowhere else.  And by the way, the promised improved average speed of 70 mph on Metro-North will be the same speed limit before the Bridgeport and Spuyten Duyvil derailments prompted the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) to lower the speed limits.  And that was 13 years ago.

DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE:      This project is important and I hope it gets built even if it takes longer and costs more than what’s being promised now.  But as I’ve said for years in my CT Rail Commuter Council days, “Our train service will get worse before it gets better”. 

There will be delays, just as we’ve seen on other CDOT projects (like the Darien train station, now 15 months behind schedule) or the never ending work on I-95, I-91 and I-84.

But can’t the CDOT and their pol bosses at least be honest with us and not over-promise and consistently under-deliver? 

And to my fellow journalists… please stop being stenographers.  Our job isn't to parrot press releases.  It's to ask the question on every commuter’s mind: 'Will this actually happen?'  

 

IS IT TIME TO TAX EVs?

Why do electric vehicles (EVs) get a free ride on our highways? 

Why do traditional ICE (internal combustion engine) car owners pay about 43 cents per gallon in gas taxes while EV owners pay nothing… and yet their cars are thought to cause more wear and tear on our highways because they’re so heavy (due to their batteries)?  Is that fair?

Those were the questions posed last spring when the legislature considered a bill to make EV (and hybrid) owners pay their fair share.  But HB 5568 never got out of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee after a single public hearing brought unanimous, vocal opposition:  54 testified against, zero in favor…  not even close.

As of December 2025, there were more than 73,156 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles registered in Connecticut, a 20% increase over the previous year.  But while those numbers are climbing, EVs and hybrids still represent less than three percent of all vehicles registered in the state.  Still, it seems that you see (but often don’t hear) them all the time, whooshing around almost silently, their drivers wearing that smile of money-saving satisfaction. 

If you’re the hypothetical “average driver” in CT and you drive about 12,000 miles a year you’ll end up paying about $209 a year in gas tax.  Drive 15,000 miles and that number jumps to about $250 a year.  And that assumes your car gets about 24.5 mpg.

Those gasoline taxes flow into the Special Transportation Fund  paying for road repairs, the DMV, and mass transit that many drivers never ride but benefit from anyway (more people taking mass transit = fewer on the roads).

Opponents of a tax on EV’s and hybrids fear it would discourage their adoption, running counter to Connecticut’s state policy of reducing auto emissions.

Connecticut is one of only eight states that don’t  tax EVs.  In Pennsylvania the fee is $250 a year for EV owners and $62.50 for plug-in hybrids.  In Vermont it’s $89 and $44.50, respectively.

The Connecticut bill, if it hadn’t died in committee, would have raised registration fees for battery electric vehicles to $345 every three years and for plug-in hybrids to $233 every three years, with standard gas vehicles remaining at $120. 

Right now EV’s only pay $57 registration fees every three years, further incentivizing their adoption.

Lawmakers (and the CDOT) argue that the Special Transportation Fund is in trouble if EV adoption rates continue and gas tax revenues continue to fall.

Why did the bill die in Committee?  Why didn’t it have the name of any lawmaker(s) as its sponsor?  Because it’s an election year and nobody wanted their fingerprints on a bill that hurts affluent EV drivers… or the environment. “Bad optics”, as they say.

Never mind that CDOT recently replaced new, electric trains on Shore Line East with diesel locomotives belching exhaust as they run between New London and New Haven.  I guess that saying you’re ‘green' is easier when you ignore the obvious.

We used to think of the necessary reform of our Social Security system as the “third rail of politics.”   Maybe taxing electric vehicles is the same thing?  Or there’s always the idea of tolls.

 

 

 

 

PT BARNUM’S BRIDGEPORT WAS NO CIRCUS

When you think of P.T. Barnum your first thought is probably about his circus, or maybe his museum of oddities in 1840’s New York City.  

What you may not know was that Barnum lived in Bridgeport and was once a State Representative in Hartford and, in 1875, Bridgeport’s mayor.  His real genius wasn't just in filling circus tents.  It was understanding logistics…how to move goods, people and opportunity efficiently.

Barnum was truly a city builder, especially because he understood that Bridgeport's future depended on its railroads.

When the New York and New Haven Railroad reached Bridgeport in 1849, most people saw a passenger line.  Barnum saw the foundation of an industrial empire. He invested accordingly, donating land for Seaside Park, backing Bridgeport Hospital and subdividing his 30-acre Waldemere estate into neighborhoods that attracted Bridgeport's industrial elite.  But most importantly he knew those civic amenities couldn't survive without an economic engine.

That “engine” was the New Haven and Housatonic Railroads.

The railroads gave Bridgeport something neither Hartford nor New Haven could match: direct coastal access plus rail connectivity to New York, Massachusetts, and the entire Northeast.  Manufacturers could ship south to New York markets, north to New England, and worldwide via Long Island Sound.

Bridgeport manufactured everything: sewing machines, buggies, machine tools, munitions, every product imaginable.  But by the 1880s, there was a problem.

Bridgeport’s railroad tracks used to run at street level right through downtown… trains competing with pedestrians, horses, carriages.  It was constant gridlock.  For local factories trying to move freight 24/7, those grade crossings were a productivity killer.

As mayor in 1875-1876, Barnum pushed hard for grade separation, elevating the tracks above street level.  Though he didn't live to see it completed, the New Haven Railroad spent $5 million in the 1890s ($183 million in today’s inflated dollars) to build that viaduct.

Think a kind thought of Barnum the next time you ride Metro-North through Bridgeport, high above the streets.

Once those tracks were elevated, something remarkable happened. The Railroad Avenue industrial district exploded.  No more street-level bottlenecks.  Freight trains moved around the clock. Factories adjacent to the viaduct could load and unload directly onto rail cars.  

Bridgeport boomed, eventually becoming one of Connecticut's largest cities, filled with skilled immigrants making good money.

What Barnum understood better than most modern planners was that you can't build a thriving city on civic projects alone.  Parks and hospitals matter.  But they're all built on an economic foundation.

Today we've got it backwards. We debate roundabouts and bike lanes while underinvesting in regional rail connectivity.  The New Haven Line still runs through Bridgeport.  It still carries passengers and could still be an economic engine… carrying freight.  

Why no freight trains today along the coast?  Stay tuned.

HOT & BOTHERED – Summer’s Transportation Meltdown

Last week’s heat wave was neither the worst nor the last we’ll see this summer. But its effects on our trains, planes and automobiles are worth remembering, and planning for, because this kind of weather will return.  Heat can take a serious toll on our travels.  Just consider…

WILDFIRE SMOKE:          Fueled by hot and tinder-dry conditions in Canada, last week’s smoky skies contributed to flight delays and travel disruptions.  Drivers were warned to keep their windows closed, switch the ventilation system to recirculate, and make sure the cabin air filter was clean.

TRAINS:       Heat can make railroad tracks lengthen by an inch (in an 1800-foot piece of track) for every ten degrees of temperature.  Because much of the track in the Northeast is welded rail (without many expansion joints) that can lead to buckling, known in the biz as “sun kinks”, where tracks get seriously out of alignment.  That can force the railroads to slow their trains down, in Amtrak’s case to just 80 mph in extreme cases, to avoid derailments. 

Sun Kinks caused by heat

Heat can also cause older fixed-tension catenary wires to expand and sag.  Much of Metro-North’s original overhead power system was more than 100 years old before Connecticut replaced it with modern constant-tension equipment.  But when the old wires sagged, a passing train’s pantograph could snag them, bringing down the power system and halting service.

You may remember just such an incident in 2011 on the then-hottest day of the summer with Manhattan pavement heating to 147 degrees.  A train near Westport got its pantograph tangled in the sagging power lines, stranding over 200 passengers onboard with no AC and no windows that could open.  The passengers, understandably,  panicked and called 911 seeking rescue by local first responders.  One positive outcome was improved emergency planning, including provisions for supplying water to passengers on stranded trains.

PLANES:      Aviation also has trouble with the heat, in some cases because it’s just too hot to fly.

Hot air is lighter than cold air, right?  Add higher elevation to the mix (think Denver, where the air is already thinner) and the physics of flying just doesn’t work.

In 2017 Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport had to cancel dozens of flights when the air temps hit 120 degrees.  Where runways are shorter some aircraft, particularly smaller regional jets, may not be able to operate safely without reducing their weight or waiting for cooler conditions.

AUTOMOBILES:    Your car is not immune to heat, either, especially its tires. Sustained high temperatures can accelerate tire deterioration, while an underinflated tire flexes and builds up even more heat as it rolls, increasing the risk of tread separation or a blowout.  Check tire pressures when they are cold and use the recommended pressure printed on the driver’s-door.

But it’s your car’s cooling system that’s strained the most, working overtime to keep the engine temperature stable.  If the temperature gauge starts climbing, turning off the AC can reduce the load on the engine.  But if the car is actually overheating, pull over safely and shut it down.

And the road itself is also under attack:  concrete can buckle (from expansion) and asphalt can soften and start rutting.  As with the trains, the safest solution is to slow down and watch for trouble ahead.

We like to think of Connecticut summers as reliably hot.  What we’re not prepared for is heat this intense… or wildfire smoke this frequent.  Our trains, planes and roads weren’t designed for heat this extreme and this persistent.  Neither were we. The heat is coming again. The only question is whether we’ll be ready.

AIRLINES’ WINDOWLESS WINDOW SEATS

 

Let’s be honest.  Flying is no fun anymore.  Traveling, yes.  Flying, no.  Again this summer the airports are crowded, the TSA lines are long, the flights delayed (and sometimes cancelled) due to weather and the fares have soared because of the Iran War.

But the airlines seem finally to be raking it in.  Estimates are this summer may be one of their best in many years as demand far exceeds supply.  People want that long-wished-for summer vacation, the price be damned.

One of the ways the airlines are draining our pocketbooks is through “unbundling”… charging for a basic seat and them upselling us for perks like checking our luggage, those sumptuous in-flight meals, a tiny bit more legroom and, yes, the choice of our favorite seat.

Mine has always been the window seat.

I’m somewhat of a white knuckles flyer and looking out the window gives me some peace of mind.  So I’ll pay that (2023 industry average) of $31 extra charge to get my ‘view’.  But imagine paying that surcharge for a window seat, boarding the plane and finding there’s no window at my seat, just a blank wall.

A "window" seat with no window

Depending on the type of aircraft, as many as five window seats per plane can lack windows.  It’s just the way the plane is built and the seats placed.  But why would the airlines sell you a “window” seat with no window?  Because they could.  Until now.

As I wrote last November, United Airlines alone pulled in $1.3 billion last year for selling assigned seats.  But now a pair of class action suits is pursuing millions of United and Delta airlines passengers’ claims that, having paid for window seats and ending up with no window, they were duped.

Last week one of those lawsuits was allowed to proceed when the judge rejected United’s claim that they never promises a window at a window seat… that the description referred more to the location of the seat, not the amenity.  As United’s lawyers tried to argue… “the use of the word ‘window’ in reference to a particular seat cannot reasonably be interpreted as a promise that the seat will have an exterior window view.”   Don’t you just love lawyers?

Can you imagine an aisle seat that’s not on the aisle?  I can’t.  And they’re as pricey as the window seats.  Some people get nauseous when flying or claustrophobic and seeing out that window helps them chill.  I get that.

But whatever the reason, simple logic says if I pay for a window seat I should get a window.  Other airlines, like American and Alaskan, have added a warning to online bookers that some window seats don’t offer a real window.  That’s at least honest.

If you go to a Broadway show you’re warned when choosing seats that there may be “an obstructed view”.  Fair enough, and probably priced accordingly.  So why can’t airlines do the same sort of disclosure.

If they lose these suits it may cost them tens of millions in refunds and possible penalties.  And the cost to their reputation?  That’s already left the gate.

 

 

 

250 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE. 350 YEARS OF CONNECTICUT TRAFFIC

 

People complain about Connecticut's roads. I get it. The potholes. The detours. The construction that begins in April and somehow ends in April of the following year.  But before you curse your GPS, consider this: getting anywhere in colonial Connecticut could be genuinely life-threatening.

We're talking about a time when "road conditions" meant snakes, waist-deep mud, fording unbridged rivers, and a footpath barely wide enough for a horse. And yet, Connecticut built America's first great transportation network.  It started with the King's Highway.

In 1672, New York Governor Francis Lovelace had a problem: getting a letter from New York to Boston took forever and often arrived mangled, late, or not at all.  Sound familiar?  His solution was a monthly postal route, and in January of 1673 the first rider began to blaze what would eventually become the Boston Post Road, US Route 1.

Here in Connecticut, that route followed an ancient Pequot trail, a path Native Americans had kept clear for centuries, it’s said, by burning back the brush each November.  So we didn't build the road.  We inherited it.  And then we paved over the history with good intentions and, for a while, added toll booths.

In 1792, Connecticut solved the pesky problem of "who pays for roads" the way it still does: user fees. The Mohegan Turnpike was the state's first, and the country’s second, turnpike: proof that Connecticut has always been eager to be an early adopter of charging people money to get somewhere. Over the next four decades, roughly 100 private turnpike companies laid some 1,400 miles of toll roads across the state.  Most of those concerns eventually went bankrupt.

By the early 1700s, Connecticut had three branches of the Post Road threading through the colony: the Upper route through Hartford and Springfield, the Lower route hugging the Sound through Stratford and Saybrook, and a Middle route cutting diagonally through Bolton and Woodstock. The road system was, for its time, impressive. Travel was still agonizing… a trip from Hartford to Boston could eat up several days.

In 1753, it’s said that Benjamin Franklin himself drove the Lower Post Road in a carriage fitted with an odometer, standardizing postal rates by distance and ordering stone mile markers placed along the route. Connecticut's General Assembly then required every town to erect them.  Imagine that: State Government mandating infrastructure improvements while arguing about who pays for it.  Some things never change.

But the real transportation superhighway of colonial Connecticut wasn't a road at all.  It was the water.

Long Island Sound was our I-95, only it actually worked.  New London, blessed with deep water and a protected harbor, was one of the colony's busiest ports.  In a single year, 1748 to 1749, 62 vessels departed for foreign ports.  Norwich and Middletown, reached by river, funneled the colony's farms and forests down to waiting ships.  New Haven moved goods both north and south.

And what were they shipping?  Horses, cattle, lumber, salted beef, and barrel staves, all headed to sugar plantations in the West Indies.  What came back in exchange?  Molasses, rum, coffee and, shamefully, enslaved human beings. The slave trade made Connecticut both prosperous and complicit in equal measure.

Much of this water commerce ended, suddenly and violently, in September 1781, when Benedict Arnold sailed into New London harbor and burned it to the ground.  The King's Highway survived.  The waterfront never fully recovered.

So, next time you're stuck on I-95 wondering why our state can't seem to get transportation right, remember: we've only been at this for 350 years.  And we've always moved but never moved quite fast enough.