Joel N. Weber II
Engineer
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?
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?
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