Train Travel Time

Update 2/1/2008: This seems to be my most consistently popular blog posts, if only because it's so darn hard to google for the train schedule! For the current train schedule, visit the MTA website.

Here's a little bit of history from the Waterbury American in 1941:



Today the train to NYC takes 2.5 hours, give or take ten minutes depending on which one you catch. In 1941, you still had to transfer in Bridgeport, so why did the trip take half an hour less sixty years ago? Did the trains run faster then? If so, that's certainly not what would have expected.

Also, for whatever reason, I've assumed that the train schedule was better in the past (that mythic era!). But in 1941, there were still only 8 trains a day from Waterbury to New York.

Maybe there were more trains in 1900. Or maybe it's only in this era that people like me want later trains from the city (as I've moaned about before, the last train back to Waterbury leaves Grand Central at 9:07pm -- so if I want to do anything in New York in the evening, I have to stay there overnight or drive part of the way -- and driving defeats the point of taking the train).