Our mission is to "Bring Back the Trains." Our website -www.barringtoninstitute.org/projects/traincampaign/ - is where we bring people together, share resources, and educate the public about the environmental, economic, and social benefits of passenger rail travel. The site needs to be upgraded to make us more effective, with a custom page system, tools to share with other [...]
Thanks to Terry Cowgill at the Berkshire Record for continued coverage of the Train Campaign. We're especially glad to get an update direct from Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy. More next month (and next year! - welcome 2016) on the Massachusetts DOT, which is not winning hearts and minds in the Berkshires. Here's Terry's recent cover [...]
Last night’s transportation “Conversation” in Pittsfield was a bust. As you can see it this photo, there were six DOT people ranged at a head table with signs in front of them saying “Rail” “Bike” etc., and tables at the side of the room with computers. First, we had pitches from our three state reps. [...]
Efforts to bring back passenger rail are springing up all over the United States. Our project, the Housatonic Corridor line from Grand Central Terminal through NW Connecticut and on to Pittsfield, MA, in the center of the Berkshires, is a model for the nation. Let's make it happen! To do this, the Train Campaign needs [...]
Join us tomorrow, Thursday, October 29, 2015, at 6.00pm in Pittsfield, MA, to tell officials from the MassDOT (Department of Transportation) how important passenger train service is to western Massachusetts communities and businesses. Our efforts at the Train Campaign continue, and we need your voice and continued support. You'll have a chance to get updates, [...]
Here is Chapter 4 Berkshire Line: New Haven's Route to the Hills, pages 45-53, from the book New Haven Passenger Trains by Peter E. Lynch, published by Quarto Publishing Group USA, 2005. Here's a bit from the introduction: The Berkshire Line originated as the combination of the Housatonic Railroad, which opened between Bridgeport and Canaan, Connecticut, [...]
California's plans for high-speed rail is one important aspect of passenger rail revitalization in the United States. Here's architect and planner Peter Calthorpe on why "High-Speed Rail Is a Catalyst for Better Development." "Just as the ’56 highway bill helped spawn the modern suburb, high-speed rail would energize a new generation of community building — one [...]
Here's another of the passenger rail projects being considered, and campaigned for, in the United States. Interest in small-scale passenger rail projects is evolving in Europe, too, where small rail lines closed in the 1960s are being revived. A vision for global rail systems has to include smaller projects as well as major city connectors, [...]
Clean and convenient restrooms are important features of modern train service and are top on the list for the new Berkshire Line. While we may complain about the condition of restrooms on Metro-North trains, here's an article from India about a situation we don't face here in the United States. NEW DELHI: Rail tracks in [...]
No one said it would be easy. We send $38 million a year to the MBTA, benefiting Boston, and naturally Boston wants to keep it. Here's an editorial in the Boston Herald, slamming a project that will connect us with New York: "A Railroad to Nowhere." Is it the Berkshires that is "nowhere," or are they [...]
