DOT Considering Extending Rail Service To Brookfield

Representatives from the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) and URS engineering consultants held an information session in Brookfield Town Hall on Wednesday night to introduce four alternatives for improving the Danbury rail line. One potential option includes extending passenger service up to New Milford, which would include a stop in Brookfield.

Two possible locations in Brookfield were considered: on Pocono Road across from the fire station and on Whisconier Road on the site of the old train station, behind the Brookfield Craft Center. The early consensus is leaning toward the latter, as it would be in walking distance of the Town Center District (TCD), a proposed pedestrian business center with residential apartments surrounding Four Corners.

A new station would be constructed behind the old station (used by the Craft Center as a wood turning and glass blowing workshop), with an elongated parking lot with space for 200 vehicles. Representatives are in talks with the Craft Center about using their entryway to the proposed lot and have assured that the old station building would not be touched.

The proposed designs for the new station are "not very romantic," according to First Selectman Bill Davidson, who compared it aesthetically to the station in Redding.

Extending the passenger line to New Milford would require reconstructing the tracks all the way down to Danbury, as passenger cars move at a much higher speed than the commercial trains that currently run on the branch. Reconstructing 14 miles of railway, including installing parallel tracks in portions, would cost approximately $200 million, according to DOT Transportation Planner Andrew Davis, who is also the project manager on the Danbury Branch Improvement Program. "You could walk faster than a passenger train could go" running on unimproved rails, Davis said.

Along with improving the existing rail, the DOT and URS are also proposing switching to electric trains, rather than diesel, which are cleaner and faster, but would cost an additional $1.5 million per mile ($21 million over 14 miles). Add to that the cost of new trains and extensive bridgework to raise at least 10 overpasses (at $10 million per bridge, by Davis' estimation), and, "It's an expensive proposition, given the condition of the tracks," Davis admitted.

The other alternatives being considered in the plan are to electrify the existing passenger service on the Danbury Branch to South Norwalk. "If you're going to electrify any of it, it'd be good to go all the way to South Norwalk," in Davis' opinion, though that will depend on funding.

The project would be funded through the state DOT and federal grants, depending on funding available from the Federal Transit Authority (FTA). In the past, federal assistance has been as high as 80 percent, according to Davis, however they generally match 50 percent of the project cost.

The likelihood of extending service to New Milford will largely depend upon the potential new ridership that would come. The ridership data has not been fully compiled yet according to URS Director of Transportation Planning Stephen Gazillo, though he did not expect that Brookfield's potential would be high. The feasibility of extending the line will likely fall to the ridership out of New Milford, which has had two well-attended public meetings. (32 members of the public attended Wednesday's meeting in Brookfield.)

If the line is extended to New Milford, there will be a stop in Brookfield, Gazillo assured.

The cost/benefit analysis will be considered in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which will be available to the public in January 2011. Funding decisions will be made in 2012, with a 2014 target for completing the designs. If the program gets the green light for full electric service through to New Milford, the new trains would be running by 2021.

On an electric rail, the estimated time from Brookfield Station to Grand Central Termination would be two hours.

The project is also considering extending passenger service another 38 miles north of New Milford to Pittsfield, MA.

The Housatonic Railroad Company (HRRC), who owns the railroad right-of-way and would be key to any agreement extending the Danbury Branch, recently sent out a press release stating that they are studying passenger service from Pittsfield to New York City, as well.

Though HRRC currently operates commercial trains, the company is conducting ridership studies and researching the viability of combining freight and passenger service through Western Massachusetts and Connecticut.