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Connecticut Commuter Rail Council Chairman Jim Gildea, left, speaks during Wednesday’s meeting. Seated next to Gildea are rail council members Roger Cirella and Peter Garneau.
DERBY — A roomful of angry commuters vented about the Waterbury Branch’s maddeningly inconsistent performance at a meeting of the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council Wednesday.
It’s not the first time Valley commuters have shared horror stories about late trains, filthy cars, and missed connections.
And judging by the timetables outlined by officials for planned improvements, it won’t be the last.
Though work to make more frequent train service on the line possible will be done by 2020, it remains to be seen when new train cars will arrive.
About 30 people showed up for a meeting of the council — an independent board that acts as an advocate for the state’s railroad commuters.
The get-together came on the heels of a couple of particularly atrocious months for the Waterbury Line, performance-wise.
Council Chairman Jim Gildea, a Derby resident, said he’d been riding the Waterbury Branch since 2011 and has seen ups and downs.
“I have certainly lived and experienced some rough spells on the Waterbury Branch … but for me what’s concerning is it’s been consistently bad for the last three months,” he said.
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The Waterbury Branch of Metro-North Railroad, as seen from the Derby-Shelton train station in Derby Wednesday evening.
The percentage of trains that arrived on time on the Waterbury line in May was a dismal 65, he said. In June it was 64. July’s numbers haven’t yet been tabulated, but he said he can’t imagine they’ll be much better.
Commuters speaking during the public comment portion of the meeting aired their frustrations.
Donna Belcinski said she rides from Naugatuck to Greenwich but doesn’t even bother when service gets as bad as it’s been recently.
“I’ve spent June and July driving to Bridgeport to park there because the Waterbury train has been so unreliable it is not getting us to work on time,” she said. “It’s been truly horrific.”
“The Waterbury Branch does not exist, as far as I’m concerned it seems that way, to Metro-North,” she said.
Ruby Taylor said she rides from Waterbury to Greenwich. The train was late Tuesday, and rolled into Stamford just as the train she needed to take from that station was about to leave from across the same platform.
“It didn’t wait,” she said. “I had to take an Uber, and spend additional money to get to work on time.”
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About 30 people showed up to Wednesday’s meeting of the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council.
Some town officials chimed in to point out that the bad and infrequent train service is hampering economic development efforts.
Chris Bowen, vice chairman of Seymour’s Economic Development Commission, echoed Belcinski, saying it’s pointless to have a train line when service is so bad.
“We’ve heard this lip service before. We want action,” he said. “At this point the line might as well not even be running, and that hurts the Valley as a whole.”
Andrew Baklik, Derby Mayor Rich Dziekan’s chief of staff, mentioned meeting with developers who are planning a mixed-use project on Derby’s Factory Street.
“The first question that those developers came with was ‘What’s going on with the train station?’” he said. “This issue is paramount to our entire downtown development.”
Two transportation officials attended the meeting: Richard Andreski, a bureau chief with the state Department of Transportation, and Glen Hayden, a Metro-North vice president of engineering.
They said they heard riders’ frustrations loud and clear — and understood their vocal skepticism when they said they’re trying to make things better.
“This feels like a support group, and I get it, you’re all experiencing really terrible service,” Andreski said. “You’re not satisfied, we’re not satisfied. This is not acceptable.”
Extensive rebuilding work on the New Haven Line has caused many track outages and slowdowns where work is being done — which cause “cascading” delays elsewhere.
The other major factor, instantly apparent to anyone who ever rides the train between Waterbury and Bridgeport — they’re obsolete.
“We’ve got some of the oldest railcars in the region running on this line, locomotives that are well exceeded their traditional useful life,” Andreski said.
He said those two factors have caused about 80 percent of recent delays on the Waterbury line.
And while a rebuilding project for the locomotives is underway and some of the maintenance projects have been put off with a view to minimizing delays, “those two issues are not going away soon.”
The first of the rebuilt locomotives will come online early next year, he said. DOT is figuring out a way to replace the railcars themselves as well, but that process will take at least four to five years.
Hayden said a project to upgrade the signaling system on the Waterbury line will be done by the end of 2020, by which time several passing sidings will also be in place, allowing two trains to run on the line at the same time.
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Metro-North Railroad’s Glen Hayden, right, speaks. Standing next to Hayden is Rich Andreski from the state Department of Transportation.
“There will be more operational flexibility at the end of 2020, which is probably the nearest light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
A number of politicians attended Wednesday’s meeting, including state Sen. George Logan, of Ansonia, state Sen. Eric Berthel, of Watertown, and two candidates running for the 104th state House of Representatives seat, Kara Rochelle and Joseph Jaumann.
Logan referenced the upcoming elections in November, and urged those in attendance to get candidates on the record so they can be held accountable.
Gildea said Thursday that the meeting gave him cause for disappointment, but also optimism.
On the one hand, he said it was frustrating to hear the Waterbury line could be ready for more frequent service in 2020 but not yet have an additional set of cars needed.
“Sadly, the work’s going to be done before the train set’s available, so there may be additional struggles to get that new service,” he said, holding out hope that the railroad could perhaps the railroad could borrow or rent needed equipment in the short-term.
On the other, it was good to hear the railroad is working to rebuild the antiquated diesel engines on the line now.
“That’s immediate,” he said. “That will help mechanical reliability.”
As was the railroad’s decision to hold off on certain maintenance projects on the New Haven line because they were causing too problems elsewhere, he said.
He said it was also good to see so many people at Wednesday’s meeting, because it shows a demand for better service exists.
“There were more people there than our other meetings combined,” GIldea said. “It really shows there’s a thirst for (better service) and the Waterbury Branch commuters are really among the most passionate.”
