Montrealer with Boston section proposal

[Joel N. Weber II]

The FRA's set of designated ``High Speed Rail'' (by which they mean 110 MPH or better on at least a short stretch) corridors includes Boston to Montreal.

I don't think well maintained conventional speed track on that route is a terribly good way to get from Boston to Montreal. It would probably be about 5 hours, which means the airplane crowd wouldn't be terribly interested, yet that's faster than works well for a sleeping car train. And it requires putting track back along ROW where there is no track, which tends to be much more difficult politically than upgrading existing track.

A timetable from last year seems to say that Springfield to Essex Junction is around 5.5 hours going via Palmer. That time should be a bit quicker once the Vermonter reroute happens.

I'm thinking that a restored Montrealer with both a Boston and New York section could be scheduled so that the northbound halves would arrive at Springfield a little before midnight, with passengers detraining and boarding by about midnight. After midnight, as the passengers who just boarded are getting settled, the train could be combined, and then the train could head north.

By keeping the Vermonter to provide reasonable calling times for the stations between Springfield and Burlington, the Montrealer would not need to make those intermediate stops.

If the track between Essex Junction and downtown Burlington were upgraded to reasonable passenger speeds (I heard last weekend that there's about 7 miles of currently 10 MPH track there), the northbound train could reverse direction when it reaches Essex Junction, back into downtown Burlington, and then have a long stop at Burlington around 6 AM during which it would reverse direction again. After that, it could continue to St Albans and Montreal, perhaps with some track upgrades being needed between St Albans and Montreal to get decent speeds.

Southbound, the Montrealer coming from Montreal could go through Essex Junction to Burlington without reversing direction, arrive at downtown Burlington around midnight, reverse direction and head to Essex Junction, and then reverse direction at Essex Junction and head to Springfield to have the train split into the Boston and New York sections before 6 AM when Springfield passengers would board and disembark before the separate sections headed their separate ways.

(Or the direction reversals at the Essex Junction wye could be skipped if having passengers riding backwards for longer distances was considered acceptable. But I suspect if the goal is to avoid having any boarding and disembarking happen between midnight and 6AM, skipping the Essex Junction wying won't save any end to end travel time.)

An Ethan Allen extended all the way to Montreal might be faster than a Montrealer all the way from New York City to Montreal, but there also are people who would enjoy a one sleeping car ride from points in Connecticut between New Haven and New York City to Burlington.

If the Montrealer and Ethan Allen served St Albans and the Vermonter were redirected to terminate at downtown Burlington instead of St Albans, would that have a major negative impact on the people who live near St Albans?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Have you ever considered putting your capable mind to ventures that aren't so pie-in-the-sky?

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Have you ever considered putting your capable mind to ventures that aren't so pie-in-the-sky?

Do you dream at night?

Proposal's like Joel's have their ways of working in to the experimental stages-- it takes out-of-the-box thinking (and actually this one isn't so out there) to expand things.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Some further thoughts:

For a third daily train on the Vermonter route, there could be a train timed to cover Brattleboro to NYP between roughly midnight and 6 AM. That would give people who live in the smaller towns along the Vermonter route a convenient sleeping car trip to NYP, WAS, and points in between, as well as adding another daily frequency between the smaller towns and Burlington. Such a train could probably quite sensibly terminate in downtown Burlington.

It might make sense to have two daily round trips on an extended Ethan Allen, with one terminating at St Albans at whatever time is considered a reasonable late evening arrival, and departing from St Albans at whatever time is considered a reasonable early morning departure, and then have another frequency, possibly timed for early morning departure and late evening arrival at NYP, which would continue all the way to Montreal.

 

[the_traveler]

I think Joel's ideas make sense. Much more than some of the proposals (and routes) that have come in the past 38 years!

 

[railiner]

Yes, it is nice to dream up these schedules. But in the real world, before considering a third train on the Vermonter, route, it would be nice to restore at least daily service on the three trains a week routes.

 

[MrEd]

thanks joel, nice work.

 

[the_traveler]

Yes, it is nice to dream up these schedules. But in the real world, before considering a third train on the Vermonter, route, it would be nice to restore at least daily service on the three trains a week routes.

Where is the "third train on the Vermonter route"? :huh:

If you're referring to the Ethan Allen, 90% of that route (from the VT border to just south of Whitehall and all stations from FED to NYP) is in New York State! The ONLY Vermont stops on that route are Fair Haven and Rutland - about 30 minutes! And were it to be extended to Burlington, it would be on the west part of the state. The Vermonter runs on the eastern part of the state to White River Junction, and then diagonally across the state.

At no point would they cross or duplicate each other!

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Yes, it is nice to dream up these schedules. But in the real world, before considering a third train on the Vermonter, route, it would be nice to restore at least daily service on the three trains a week routes.

Having a third Vermonter would not affect daily trains. The Vermonter uses AFIs and a BC/Cafe car. While there is indeed a gear shortage a 3rd daily Vermonter would not prevent making other trains daily. The only thing the Vermonter would pull out of the pool is some more power.

Amtrak also uses the Vermonter as a corridor train South of NHV, keep that in mind.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

What I'm proposing here requires allocating at least six sleeping cars to Springfield<->Essex Junction and beyond, since each daily round trip with a sleeping car requires two sets, and my Montrealer proposal requires a Boston and a New Haven/NYP/WAS sleeper for each set, and the third daily round trip with the nighttime in Masachusetts and Connecticut would require a sleeper in each of its two sets as well. Depending on ridership, there might be demand for more than one sleeping car per train section, even.

But Amtrak doesn't buy sleeping cars one at a time, they buy them in batches. Single level sleepers seem to be a less than once a decade purchase. I certainly don't want to wait over a decade after the Cardinal goes daily to see an overnight Boston to Montreal train. And the number of sleepers Amtrak buys in the next batch will probably be influenced by the number of specific routes people are telling Amtrak they should put sleepers on.

I do hope they will get the sleepers for the new trains built early in the process so that they can look at actual ridership on any new trains to decide how many options to exercise later in the building process.

(There is also the question, though, of whether Amtrak could get one of the prototype Viewliner Sleepers upgraded to a point where it could be used in the third set that would be needed to make the Cardinal daily.)

And the frequency of the Sunset is completely independent of this discussion; I would not expect to see any Superliners running on any of the Vermont routes. Possibly there is some interaction if the Capitol Limited were converted to a single level train to free up equipment for the Sunset and make coupling to the Pennsylvanian easier, in that the Capitol Limited would then be getting equipment out of the same pool as the Vermont trains.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Where is the "third train on the Vermonter route"? :huh:

For a third daily train on the Vermonter route, there could be a train timed to cover Brattleboro to NYP between roughly midnight and 6 AM. That would give people who live in the smaller towns along the Vermonter route a convenient sleeping car trip to NYP, WAS, and points in between, as well as adding another daily frequency between the smaller towns and Burlington. Such a train could probably quite sensibly terminate in downtown Burlington.

If you're referring to the Ethan Allen, 90% of that route (from the VT border to just south of Whitehall and all stations from FED to NYP) is in New York State! The ONLY Vermont stops on that route are Fair Haven and Rutland - about 30 minutes! And were it to be extended to Burlington, it would be on the west part of the state. The Vermonter runs on the eastern part of the state to White River Junction, and then diagonally across the state.
At no point would they cross or duplicate each other!

There is some potential duplication between the Ethan Allen and the Vermonter around Burlington and points to the north if the Ethan Allen were extended far enough, in the same sense that the Cardinal duplicates the Lake Shore Limited (they're both NYP to CHI trains, never mind that if you want to get off at any of the intermediate stops, they're completely different).

Indeed, you'll notice I didn't propose an overnight NYP to Montreal train on the Ethan Allen route. Such a train doesn't really connect to anything in CT, NJ, PA, DE, MD, or DC, and thus I don't think it's justified unless ridership on the NYP-Burlington and NYP-Montreal city pairs on the overnight trains that go via White River Junction suggests that riders would easily fill the overnight Ethan Allen while also leaving the trains via White River Junction continuing to get adequate ridership. But I suspect there's a lot of room to make the trains via White River Junction longer before needing the overnight Ethan Allen.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Amtrak also uses the Vermonter as a corridor train South of NHV, keep that in mind.

Indeed, if we were to expand the definition of the NEC to include more tracks through New England along traditional rights of ways, there could be several branches north/east of New Haven:

1) Boston South Station via Rhode Island

2) Boston South Station via Springfield and Worcester

3) Maine via Springfield, Worcester, Ayer, Lowell, and Haverhill (there's a mile or two of Providence and Worcester track just north of Worcester, and from there the train would be alternating between MBTA and Pan Am trackage on its way to New Hampshire; this train could make all of the Downeaster stops except Woburn and Boston North Station.) Some day there may be two branches north of Portland, also.

4) Concord NH, Manchester NH, and Nashua, NH via Springfield, Worcester, and Ayer

5) Vermont/Montreal

Big Dig Two might eliminate most of the value of going via Ayer, and allow 3 and 4 to be collapsed into 1 and 2, though.

 

[DET63]

Yes, it is nice to dream up these schedules. But in the real world, before considering a third train on the Vermonter, route, it would be nice to restore at least daily service on the three trains a week routes.

Where is the "third train on the Vermonter route"? :huh:

If you're referring to the Ethan Allen, 90% of that route (from the VT border to just south of Whitehall and all stations from FED to NYP) is in New York State! The ONLY Vermont stops on that route are Fair Haven and Rutland - about 30 minutes! And were it to be extended to Burlington, it would be on the west part of the state. The Vermonter runs on the eastern part of the state to White River Junction, and then diagonally across the state.

At no point would they cross or duplicate each other!

I think the comment about "the three trains a week routes" was referring to trains like The Cardinal and The Sunset Limited, which operate with less than daily frequency.

 

[AlanB]

(There is also the question, though, of whether Amtrak could get one of the prototype Viewliner Sleepers upgraded to a point where it could be used in the third set that would be needed to make the Cardinal daily.)

Actually I was a bit surprised that Amtrak didn't take some of Stimulus monies and restore 62091, the second prototype that last saw service less than 10 years ago. It was originally numbered 2301.

But if they can restore the diner, which hadn't turned a wheel in many more years, it should have cost far less to restore 62091 to service. Even if they didn't use it for the Cardinal and just kept it as a protect car in Chicago, which currently doesn't have any protect cars, it would have been a good idea.

 

[SRJ Rails]

Have you ever considered putting your capable mind to ventures that aren't so pie-in-the-sky?

Do you dream at night?

Proposal's like Joel's have their ways of working in to the experimental stages-- it takes out-of-the-box thinking (and actually this one isn't so out there) to expand things.

I am new to this forum but have been traveling Amtrak off and on since 1981, with a long trip in May 2005 and another scheduled for this coming January. I would like to make two points if I may be so bold. First, there seems to be an incredible amount of nastiness / snarking on the site. Again I am new and it may not be my place to observe and post such a comment. I have heard over the years that a democracy is messy and adversarial, but jeeps folks!! Second, the need for dreamers cannot be overestimated. Lots of dreams go nowhere, but when they do, people are called visionaries. A few years ago, I retired from a position which required me to make sure dreams "penciled out", who knows what never happened because the economic realities were not readily apparent.

 

[railiner]

Yes, it is nice to dream up these schedules. But in the real world, before considering a third train on the Vermonter, route, it would be nice to restore at least daily service on the three trains a week routes.

Where is the "third train on the Vermonter route"? :huh:

If you're referring to the Ethan Allen, 90% of that route (from the VT border to just south of Whitehall and all stations from FED to NYP) is in New York State! The ONLY Vermont stops on that route are Fair Haven and Rutland - about 30 minutes! And were it to be extended to Burlington, it would be on the west part of the state. The Vermonter runs on the eastern part of the state to White River Junction, and then diagonally across the state.

At no point would they cross or duplicate each other!

I think the comment about "the three trains a week routes" was referring to trains like The Cardinal and The Sunset Limited, which operate with less than daily frequency.

In my comment, I was quoting from Mr Weber's mention of the 'third train' a few posts above. And yes, I was refering to those current routes that have less than daily service.

I wasn't putting down anyones well thought out proposals, nor getting into the logistics of procuring equipment. I was simply commenting that Amtrak's attention, and/or funding should first be directed toward bringing daily service to tri weekly routes. If I offended anyone, I apologize.

 

[delvyrails]

Yes, it is nice to dream up these schedules. But in the real world, before considering a third train on the Vermonter, route, it would be nice to restore at least daily service on the three trains a week routes.

Where is the "third train on the Vermonter route"? :huh:

If you're referring to the Ethan Allen, 90% of that route (from the VT border to just south of Whitehall and all stations from FED to NYP) is in New York State! The ONLY Vermont stops on that route are Fair Haven and Rutland - about 30 minutes! And were it to be extended to Burlington, it would be on the west part of the state. The Vermonter runs on the eastern part of the state to White River Junction, and then diagonally across the state.

At no point would they cross or duplicate each other!

I think the comment about "the three trains a week routes" was referring to trains like The Cardinal and The Sunset Limited, which operate with less than daily frequency.

In my comment, I was quoting from Mr Weber's mention of the 'third train' a few posts above. And yes, I was refering to those current routes that have less than daily service.

I wasn't putting down anyones well thought out proposals, nor getting into the logistics of procuring equipment. I was simply commenting that Amtrak's attention, and/or funding should first be directed toward bringing daily service to tri weekly routes. If I offended anyone, I apologize.

I have a U.S. railroad map on my living room wall; and really, Vermont is such a tiny part of the country.

That it should have three trains while so much of the country has metro areas larger in population than the entire state of Vermont that are worse served is misplaced, provincial enthusiasm. Let's expand our viewpoints.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I have a U.S. railroad map on my living room wall; and really, Vermont is such a tiny part of the country.
That it should have three trains while so much of the country has ciites larger in population than the entire state of Vermont that are badly served is misplaced, provincial enthusiasm. Let's expand our viewpoints.

Let's do that by proposing more trains in those larger cities, not by arguing that small towns in Vermont shouldn't have adequate train service.

Are there places in Europe with population densities similar to Vermont? If so, what sort of train service densities do they have?

Also, there is some value in looking at the overall intercity transportation picture. The typical resident of a large US city is within an hour drive of an airport. The typical resident of Vermont (outside of Burlington, anyway) isn't.

 

[Sam31452]

I have a U.S. railroad map on my living room wall; and really, Vermont is such a tiny part of the country.
That it should have three trains while so much of the country has ciites larger in population than the entire state of Vermont that are badly served is misplaced, provincial enthusiasm. Let's expand our viewpoints.

Let's do that by proposing more trains in those larger cities, not by arguing that small towns in Vermont shouldn't have adequate train service.

Are there places in Europe with population densities similar to Vermont? If so, what sort of train service densities do they have?

Also, there is some value in looking at the overall intercity transportation picture. The typical resident of a large US city is within an hour drive of an airport. The typical resident of Vermont (outside of Burlington, anyway) isn't.

There's Sweden for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden

or, if you want to get really jealous the Swiss canton of Graubünden.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graubünden

Going there is like going to narrow gauge railway heaven:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RhB

 

[delvyrails]

We can propose all the trains we want; but unfortunately, North America is much different politically, economically, demographically, etc. from northwestern Europe. Transfering data across the Pond is not so relevant as comparing transportation in our closest Anglo neighbor, Canada, and perhaps to a lesser degree, Australia.

Now, decades ago, I rode the Budd cars from Toronto northwest to the little port cities along Lake Huron, and other lines. They're almost all gone now, as here, too. Aside from a few corridors and metropolitan commuter trains, this kind of U.S. market goes by bus (the smallest economic-capacity mode and actually the most energy efficient), if it doesn't drive.

Aside from commuters and the few big, short corridors here, what's potentially left are the long distance corridors, especially coast to coast, where there are many overlapping travel markets involved that one train can handle.

To get a good idea where these long corridors are, first check out the U.S. railroad map for presence of a high quality mainline railroad. Then check the 100 or so most important travel markets in the appendix of the NARP website. Next or alternately, browse an Official Airline Guide looking for more than. say, six or ten direct flights per day city to city. Draw these "city pairs" on to the railroad map. and watch the overlaps grow. Where you have multiple thicknesses will tend to be be the more promising routes for a prioritized addition to the present Amtrak network.

It's a bit of work and may seem like a simplistic exercise; but with our limited resources, it's much better than guessing.

 

[Neil_M]

Have you ever considered putting your capable mind to ventures that aren't so pie-in-the-sky?

Now there is undiluted irony in its purest form! :lol:

 

[railiner]

We can propose all the trains we want; but unfortunately, North America is much different politically, economically, demographically, etc. from northwestern Europe. Transfering data across the Pond is not so relevant as comparing transportation in our closest Anglo neighbor, Canada, and perhaps to a lesser degree, Australia.
Now, decades ago, I rode the Budd cars from Toronto northwest to the little port cities along Lake Huron, and other lines. They're almost all gone now, as here, too. Aside from a few corridors and metropolitan commuter trains, this kind of U.S. market goes by bus (the smallest economic-capacity mode and actually the most energy efficient), if it doesn't drive.

Aside from commuters and the few big, short corridors here, what's potentially left are the long distance corridors, especially coast to coast, where there are many overlapping travel markets involved that one train can handle.

To get a good idea where these long corridors are, first check out the U.S. railroad map for presence of a high quality mainline railroad. Then check the 100 or so most important travel markets in the appendix of the NARP website. Next or alternately, browse an Official Airline Guide looking for more than. say, six or ten direct flights per day city to city. Draw these "city pairs" on to the railroad map. and watch the overlaps grow. Where you have multiple thicknesses will tend to be be the more promising routes for a prioritized addition to the present Amtrak network.

It's a bit of work and may seem like a simplistic exercise; but with our limited resources, it's much better than guessing.

Have you done any of this research? If so, would you care to share your findings?

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Where there are existing well maintained freight railroads, they are frequently busy enough just carrying freight traffic (at least in years when the economy is strong). I don't think focusing on existing freight mainlines is the best way to plan passenger service.

Maine already has five round trips a day to Boston. Admittedly, their population is roughly double Vermont's. But if Vermont wanted to catch up to Maine on per capita trains per day, they'd need to add another daily half round trip or so.

And it's worth noting that Maine's service started up relatively recently, with US economics, demographics, etc.

Constructing track or upgrading it to passenger standards accounts for a substantial fraction of the cost of running passenger service, and a lot of the track I'm suggesting be used here is already track that has passenger service or that's being proposed to be upgraded to passenger standards anyway. In particular, I believe Vermont is already looking for federal funding for the Ethan Allen extension to Burlington, and I believe I heard that is likely to be something like $20-$30 million. If Vermont were to get 1/50th of the $8 billion for ``high speed'' rail, they'd get $160 million. I think there's probably money left over in that $160 million after getting the Ethan Allen to downtown Burlington for the 7 miles from Burlington to Essex Junction, and for the track from St Albans to Montreal. (I'm not sure if the fine print on the $8 billion says those sections are eligible, but it wouldn't be surprising if Congress has an opportunity to allocate more money in future years, and they could revise the fine print when doing so.)

 

[delvyrails]

Yes, I have looked at the top 48 U.S. travel markets over about 750 miles long as given in the NARP website appendix. As it turned out, more than half are not well or not at all served by Amtrak, beginning with the sixth-ranked San Francisco-Phoenix market on three counts: overnight stay at LA required, only tri-weekly service east of there, and no real service to Phoenix itself. That example will give you the idea of what improvements are needed, from rescheduling at low cost to new route miles at higher cost.

I'll give the full list on a new post, "Amtrak Doesn't Go There".

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Looking at the Pan Am System Map, it appears that there is track not owned by Pan Am heading southeast from Rutland that connects to Bellows Falls. Would it ever make sense to have Springfield, MA to Burlington, VT service via Bellows Falls and Rutland?