BURLINGTON, Vermont — Amtrak passenger trains could be rolling into the state’s largest city in about four years after the final upgrade is completed on a 75-mile stretch of track between Rutland and Burlington, transportation officials said Friday.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was in Burlington, where he announced the state has won a $10 million federal grant that will help pay for upgrades including 11 miles of continuously welded rail.
“We don’t take the position that we just put steel and concrete and asphalt out on the roadways and the railways,” Foxx said. “We take the view that everything we’re doing is connecting people to the 21st-century economy.”
Passenger rail service to Burlington ended about half a century ago although the Amtrak Vermonter passes through Essex Junction, 7 miles northeast of Burlington, which has more than 40,000 residents and is the state’s biggest city.
Vermont officials have worked for years to upgrade the rails along the 75-mile route between Burlington and Rutland. The new project will improve highways crossings, rail sidings and new passenger platforms in Vergennes and Middlebury so people can start riding the route again.
It’s all part of a regional effort to improve the passenger rail network througho
The current operating plan for the ETHAN ALLEN is to wye the train each day at Rutland and probably again at Burlington (BTV). Trains from Albany arrive the Rutland station headed south, so they must be turned around there, or towed backwards, before the 67 miles north from Rutland to Burlington are run.
At Rutland there is an existing wye, already used by the ETHAN ALLEN after unloading each day, as Rutland is the current terminus of this service from New York and Albany. This wye is just south of the station, at the junction of the Vermont Rail System (VRS) former Green Mountain RR Bellows Falls route and the VRS south end mainline to Hoosic Jct, NY, which is the former Rutland RR “Troy” mainline. (The Rutland–Bellows Falls side of the wye was originally the Rutland RR mainline in the Boston direction, which connected thru to the now gone B&M “Cheshire” line towards Boston at Bellows Falls–as well as to the still very active former Central Vermont/New England Central (NECR) mainline there to New London, CT). Rutland was the “hub” of the Rutland RR and still is the very active “hub” of the Vermont Rail System.
Plans for turning the train at Burlington are still fluid and this is one reason the line’s passenger reopening is set for 3-4 years out–even though all track repairs to allow 59mph passenger operation (Class Three track) will be done by the end of the autumn of 2017. If signals are later added we would be able to run at 79mph on this line, but that is not funded in the current grant. The ETHAN ALLEN runs in “dark” territory north of Whitehall, NY.
There is an existing wye at Essex Junction, northeast about 8 miles from Burlington Union Station. But using that wye would require upgrading the NECR Essex Jct-Burlington branch, which is currently about 8 miles of 10mph track. This upgrade is in the 5 year Vermont Rail Plan, but is also not currently funded as part of the ETHAN ALLEN to Burlington project.
Gracias! Many thanks on this project and the other Vermont passenger refforts to Chris Parker of the Vermont Rail Action Network, to the management of VRS and the NECR, who have strongly supported passenger service on their systems, to the rock-solid support of the Vermont Congrssional delegation and of course to VTRANs employees and leadership and not least the Vermont state legislature, where rail is still a truly non-partisan issue. The Rutland state representatives are virtually all GOP and all very much “on-board”.
Kudos to the state of Vermont for its long term vision and perseverance with these projects. With the exception possibly of Maine, New Hampshire, and of course Hawai’i, no state has a worse freight railroad infrastructure on which to attempt to build new passenger train routes. Yes, it hasn’t happened overnight, but it looks like it will happen. Vermont is in it for the long haul. This is refreshing because it’s in stark contrast to those in my native state of Montana who periodically pine for the return of the North Coast Hiawatha, and their only solution is for the federal government to cough up a lump sum amount ($1 billion + in 2009) to fix the track and buy rolling stock, and in the interim spend none of their money on their existing Amtrak route or methodically and incrementally upgrading the route as Vermont has done.
Carl, thanks for your insightful post. I must ask, however: Why not use an Amtrak cab car or “cabbage” for the entire trip to accommodate push-pull operation for reversing direction at Rutland? Using some version of this between Burlington and Rutland would be time consuming both ways setting out and picking up the piece of equipment (and this piece of equipment would have to be wyed itself at Rutland to prepare for the next Amtrak train – going the opposite direction). Wyeing the train in Rutland for every trip will be a time consuming maneuver at best. Given that the Ethan Allen Express takes 5.5 to 5.75 hours to make the current trip between New York City and Rutland, a 6 to 6.5 hour sch
That’s both a hindrance and a blessing. It is great that VT sees the benefits in competitive passenger rail service. If only they can increase the speeds. Meanwhile, several major population centers in the US continue to lack any service - Columbus, OH and Phoenix.
Vermont is trying to avoid high Amtrak charges for a lease of a cab car, “dummy” unit (ala the DOWNEASTER). Before the Northampton reroute Amtrak had tried to get nearly $1,000,000 per year for a second unit on the VERMONTER. We dodged much of that, however, because Amtrak had pulled our former Metroliner cab car for their own purposes. A further twist on the ETHAN ALLEN route is the requirement to change engines at Albany (or run one of Amtrak’s small fleet of third rail diesels all the way north).
You are right to question my initial comments about running time. 6.5 hours will not come at the start. Running time initially will probably be around 7.5–8 hours. The track work now to be completed on the VRS/CLP (Clarendon and Pittsford) system will only permit 59mph, due to the absense of block signals. But the Vermont State Rail Plan does reflect the plan to add CTC to both the NECR and VRS passenger routes, which would immediately give us 79mph running. THE NECR and its continuation of the Pan Am Southern (ex-B&M) south of White River Jct. already has extensive 79mph track, as it is mostly signalled territory.
We are initially PTC exempt due to only one passenger movement per day, but given the inevitable push to be “absolutely safe” (an absurdity of course) I suspect this requirement will come.
But for now speeds will rise to 79mph at Whitehall on the ETHAN ALLEN route and varyingly between 95-110mph south of Schenectady to Poughkeepsie and generally at least 89mph south of there. The present EA schedule allows for a very long layover in Albany–far more than needed to change engines. This was primarily to allow for OT arrivals at NYP during the era of track work/slow orders on the CLP and the D&H/CPR–which work is now largely done. (A small part of the CLP from around Castleton to the New York state line is still under slow orders).
The directional reverse at Rutland is unavoidable, because the Amtrak station (which is approximately on the his
What is the market for the Ethan Allen? Especially from Burlington, VT!
Jet Blue has flights from Burlington to NYC. The advance purchase fares range from $63 to $109. These are dynamic fares that can change hourly. The average flying time is 1 hour, 16 minutes.
Amtrak’s fares from Rutland to NYC range from $73 to $103. Presumably fares from Burlington would be higher.
According to Google Maps the driving time from Burlington to NYC is 5 hours, 26 minutes.
Greyhound has five buses per day from Burlington to NYC. The best time is 8 hours, 45 minutes; the other schedules take nearly 10 hours. The lowest advance web fare is $22.
Megabus has one bus a day from Burlington to NYC. The running time is 7 hours, 45 minutes. Fares begin at $10.
In FY15 the Ethan Allen lost $1.5 million or 14.8 cents per passenger mile. This compares to an average loss per passenger mile for the state supported trains of 5.9 cents.
Ticket revenues were approximately $3 million, and expenses before depreciation and interest were approximately $7.1 million, leaving a ticket loss of approximately $4 million.
The Ethan Allen carried 52,553 passengers in FY15 or a daily average of 72 passengers per train. The average subsidy per passenger was roughly $75 per ride.
Before spending $10 million or more to upgrade the track for passenger train service to the Burlington area, Vermont might have been better off to sponsor Amtrak Thruway bus connections similar to the Amtrak California model. I suspect that it could get a pretty good connecting service for a lot less than $10 million.
JPSI makes a classic conservative arguement against added rail service, with which I (and the state of Vermont) obviously disagree, but there are elements above that are not withour some merit.
The entire point of the ETHAN ALLEN extension project is to address the train’s most fundamental weakness from a Vermont perspective–it barely serves the state. Throughout the history of this service the busiest stops on the route (it was initially an added Vermont supported route only north of Albany) after Rutland have been Saratoga Springs, and Fort Edward (Lake George, Glens Falls), New York. Since the passage of the PRIIA Act New York has had to absorb its share of costs, which has really helped. This service was always supposed to go further.
But the entire point of extending the train to Burlington has been to bring it into strong markets (seven colleges betwen Middlebury and Burlington alone) and provide a service to more than just the end point of New York City, which is all the current bus and air services effectively do. I don’t know where JPSI gets the idea there are 5 daily Greyhound trips to NYC. There are infact none run by the Hound.
The only possible all Greyhound route involveds going all the way to Boston and changing there. Vermont Transit/Greyhound dropped its last Burlington-Albany-New York run almost seven years ago. The state does support (since last year) a single Vermont Transline bus service down the west side corridor, which serves the Albany Greyhound Terminal and the Albany Airport, but it averages fewer than a dozen riders a day. This can be reserved either directly or on the Hound site.
Better used is a single daily Megabus trip, but it offers only a full BTV/NYC ride–no local stops. In any event a train is not a bus, nor is it a plane. If the argument was only what could be run without subsidy we would have to rerun for the thousandth time to the issue of hidden air and highway subsidies–but in this matter the reality is that in Vermont
“Greyhound has five buses per day from Burlington to NYC. The best time is 8 hours, 45 minutes; the other schedules take nearly 10 hours. The lowest advance web fare is $22.”
There is nothing in my comment suggesting that Greyhound’s service from Burlington to NYC is direct. Or that any of the schedules are non-stop.
Buses leave Burlington at 2:15 a.m., 7:50 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:45 p.m., and 7:20 p.m. The fastest schedule is the 7:50 a.m. bus. It also has the highest fare at $42. This information is available at https://www.greyhound.com/en/ecommerce/schedule.
What JPSI just found is the one bus trip under 10+ hours, which is not the Hound from Burlington to Albany, but is the state supported Vermont Transline once a day service Burlington to Albany, and then The Hound. This is the trip that currently does not go to the train station in Albany.
All other Greyhound options and all true Hound trips are via Boston or the slowest of all at over 13 hours is via White River Jct, with changes there and in Springfield, and a two hour plus layover in the middle of the night in WRJ. To me these don’t count, as they are absurdly circuitous.
This is an argument over how many angels dance on the head of a pin. If you accept JPSI’s view that the existence of a bus option means there is no case for a train, then a bus option indeed exists and a train so far does not. We want to offer both and are prepared to pay for that.
By the by, I hope Vermont retains the BTV/ALB bus after the train finally arrives as a second service at times different than the train, with joint stations and ticketing–this an Ambus, but our record up here on that to date is not good, as I also noted above
What is the market for passenger rail from Burlington to Rutland and points beyond? This is the relevant question.
It appears that Burlington, a community of approximately 42,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, has ample bus and air service. So what is the market for the train? It presumably will have to take passengers from the current commercial operators, i.e. air or bus, or pull them out of their cars.
Many of the schedules shown on Greyhound.com are connections filled by contract carriers or other carriers. So what? What does that have to do with the adequacy of the service?
The population of the city of Burlington is indeed about 42,000. The Burlington/Chittenden County population is around 120,000. But again and fundamentally you and I can not resolve this issue. I believe rural areas deserve multi-modal options and you clearly question this. We hope primarily to attract car users to both our Amtrak and state-supported bus services. There is virtually no Burlington-New York bus market and any air users motivated by time will obviously continue to fly.
I could throw back the question of why Texas should rate the tri-weekly SUNSET and the excruciatingly slow TEXAS EAGLE, but I suspect you might agree it doesn’t–at least based on past patronage. But of course my rhetorical question on the TEXAS long-hauls would be a specious arguing/debator’s point, because I actually do believe them to be fully justified and have used both on repeated occasions. As in Vermont they suffer from Amtrak’s eternal institutionalized pessimism, from lack of funding, virtually no advertising etc (and unlike Vermont from infifferent or hostile freight road “hosts”). How can the SUNSET be expected to thrive running only three times per week. How can service grow when Amtrak refuses to add seasonal capacity? Etc and ad nausea.
Burlington indeed enjoys remarkably decent air service (although bizarre gaps exist–for example no flights other than via New York to our logical US overseas hub and largest New England city, Boston). Similarly Dallas and Houston to put it mildly enjoy superb air service. Thus presumeably there should be no rail option?
But the planes serve only end-points. If you want to go directly anywhere on the VERMONTER or ETHAN ALLEN routes by air from Burlington other than New York, Philly or Washington you’re out of luck and surprisingly this applies to more towns than most people would expect by bus as well.
Greyhound has spent the last decade “transitioning” from serving actually transit dependent smaller communities to tr