The section of the Hartford, Providence, & Fishkill/ New York & New England right of way between Hartford and New Britain was pressed into service as the CTfastrak Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line in 2015. At present, this is one of only two places on the entire line (the other being a small portion of the Northeast Corridor) where one can actually ride mass transit on the line, albeit on a bus.
The busway has been controversial among railfans for the loss of railroad miles and among taxpayers for its cost. Personally, I think this op-ed by a UCONN student, Thess Johnson, gets it right. The busway exists, and for whatever trouble went on in building it, it works pretty well. My wife and I recently decided it would be fun to eat at a number of places in Downtown Hartford on a weekend afternoon, and parking in the suburbs and taking the bus in made it very hassle free. I'd rather have a train, but I like having good public transit.
All of the station sites listed on the map above were sited with information from the Tyler City Station site. Elmwood is West Hartford's southern village, and the station stop is pretty close to the Hartford line. There are some active factories in this area, but shopping and restaurants are the primary reason a non-resident would stop here. Interesting stores include Jerry's Artarama and A Dong Vietnamese grocery. Interesting restaurants (to me) include Pho Boston, the Corner Pug, Frank Pepe's Pizza, and Elmwood Pizza & Grinders. There are many others too.
Like all of the dedicated busway between Parkville and Newington Junction, the HP&F formerly ran next to the New Haven Line (today's Amtrak Hartford Line.) This resulted in a 4 track main. The HP&F were the north/western tracks and the Hartford Line the south/eastern tracks. Today this means the busway is parallel to the Amtrak line, always to the north and west of it.
Click on the thumbnail for the full resolution image
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A
mid-20th century conductor's cash form 3 ticket, sold between New
Britain and Hartford and thus an artifact linked to this branch. It is
undated, but does not list Crescent Beach, Sound View, or South Lyme
as local stops along the Shore Line, so based on their dates of
abandonment on the Tyler City Station site, this suggests this ticket
is from the 1930s or later. Note that compared to the earlier form 32
ticket above, there are more local stops listed between Waterbury and
New Britain. |
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A busway digital ticket as it appeared in 2023, defaced |
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A busway digital child's ticket as it appeared in 2023, defaced |
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Looking north towards Hartford from the northbound CTfastrak platform at Elmwood (10/2023.) |
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Getting off the southbound Elmwood CTfastrak platform onto New Park Ave (10/2023.) |
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Looking south along the HP&F right of way at the southbound CTfastrak platform from the northbound platform (10/2023.) |
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Looking
west on New Britain Ave, towards Elmwood. This was taken from a moving
CTfastrak bus. The Corner Pug is at front right (12/2023.) |
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(c) 2016-2024 Timothy M Dowd. Last Modified @ 19:14 EST on 2024-01-07
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