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 trying to focus on a network that runs from regional centers like Burlington as quickly as possible to "hub" air cities like Boston. We retain 4 useable Hound trips a day to Boston (direct--no changes) and Montreal, but no longer do any of these trips make the former stops at such points as Waterbury (Stowe), or Randolph, or St. Albans--to cite just three Vermont examples where the train is now the only intercity option. Greyhound has replicated this pattern all over the country. The buses go a little faster than they used to, but skip countless potential markets that could be their's exclusively.
This business plan by the Hound may work for them, but it makes all the more important the need for travel options for small town/rural America--unless of course you think that the need to subsidize those options means they should not be provided and anyone unfortunate enough to want to get to Waterbury should drive or take a cab.
The view that balanced and multi-modal transportation is too costly to justify is understandable, but at least in Vermont is not the prevailing wisdom. As I noted the rail program here enjoys across party support. The entirely Republican state legislative delegation from the Rutland area has long supported both rail and bus, as has the almost entirely Democratic membership from Burlington.
As I also noted Vermont is hardly Switzerland as far as multi-modality infers. We pay for extensive rural bus services (with strong Federal support), but fail to integrate those with either Amtrak nor in most cases Greyhound. (The Vermont Transline Burlington-Albany and Rutland--White River Jct trips are co-sold by the Hound, but not Amtrak).
We very foolishly allowed the Amtrak/bus connection we once did have from the VERMONTER with the old Vermont Transit--later Greyhound Lines (with joint ticketing and in common stations) from St. Albans to Montreal to die when the Hound ceased to serve St. Albans--even though we could and should have set up a dedicated replacement run as an Ambus (but this is coming by 2018 as a train--at last!). We support the Vermont Transline buses noted above, and all their end-points are served by Amtrak as well--but nowhere is this coordinated.
But at the end of the day we have a fairly remarkable offering of rail and bus here because we want it and are willing to pay for it. This could change, but after taking Federal grants of $100,000,000+ in the past decade I think the truth is we will ride on and I am grateful for it.
Carl Fowler
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?
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
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
"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.
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's support for rail crosses party lines (thank God) and our ridership is sufficient that we are more than willing to support more and better passenger rail.
(Driving from Burlington to New York in 5 hours 45 minutes is also to put it mildly optimistic. Allowing for traffic, rest stops and toll barriers 7 houurs is about the best I ever do and often it takes more than that--8 hours+--if conditions are bad around Albany and north of New York in Rockland/Westchester counties).
I will also accept JPSI has a good point regarding the value of Ambus services, but not in my view as a substitute for rail. Vermont supports an extensive bus network, but virtually none of it is integrated with either the ETHAN ALLEN or the VERMONTER. I have strongly advocated for a change in state policy to compel the local transit authorities to coordinate their services, but so far to little avail.
The Vermont Transline bus above is a good example. It does not cross the Hudson River in Albany to the Amtrak station and (obviously) does not have joint rail/bus ticketing. So near yet so far. We support bus service from the Amtrak station in Bellows Falls to Ludlow (Okemo ski resort) and over the mountains to Rutland. On paper this does connect to the VERMONTER, but nowhere in either the bus or rail timetable is this acknowledged and southbound the BLF layover is over two hours. The passenger must somehow intuit the existence of the bus connection and somehow find the details on the web. This is absurd, but so far the Agency of Transportation (which supports the operation of both the rail and bus routs) has done nothing to make this connection transparent and properly coordinated.
I absolutely agree that the California Ambus network proves the value of coordinated/integrated service, but so far in eight years on the Vermont State Rail Advisory Committee I have failed to get even one rail/bus service integrated. We are passing up major revenue for both carriers by not at least trying to do this.
In transit in the USA nothing comes easily. Vermont is now studying the possibility of servicing Amtrak in Albany with its bus as an interim measure before the ETHAN ALLEN project is completed. Mayby? Perhaps?
But if past patronage dictated all new rail starts we would never do much of anything. The ETHAN ALLEN should always have gone to Burlington, but it took a long time to get it done. The VERMONTER should always have started in Montreal, but until recently Canadian National crew requirements and track conditions north of the border made that impossible. This too we expect to see in the next two to three years. We project as much as a tripling of rail ridership in the state as a result of full implementation, but only time will tell.
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.
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 historic Rutland RR location in downtown Rutland--although a modern building) is south of the junction with the CLP. To eliminate this a new and much less centrally located stop would have to be built at the VRS/CLP junction. Not only costly and bad for business, but it would render useless the 1996 "James Jeffords Memorial" Rutland Amtyrak station.
VerMontanan 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.
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.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Mark Meyer
May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen, along with Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys, captured Fort Ticonderoga.
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".
Carl, thanks for the detail insights into the operational issues involving extending the Ethan Allen.
Its quite amazing that it has taken 24 years to get a pretty straight forward and inexpensive project done.
I can't imagine what it will take to get the montrealer back in service.
Luckily it seems that all the hard work that you and your organization has done will soon pay off. Thanks for a job well done.
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.
Consideration is also being made to building a wye just south of Burlington Union Station, near the VRS shops in Burlington, but this is more complicated than it might seem. There is an EPA "Superfund" toxic waste area here in what used to be a coal/canal boat unloading area that superficially appears to be the best place to build a wye (but is virtually unimaginably expensive to clean-up for reuse) and the balance of the land in the area near the shops is heavily developed already. It may actually be cheaper to upgrade the Essex Junction branch than to build a new wye at Burlington and that connects the new west side route to the NECR mainline to Montreal--an enticing long-term idea for extending the route north, or east to Montpelier, the Vermont state capitol.
Consideration is also being given to using a VRS pilot unit or some sort of cab car between Rutland and Burlington. In this event the reversal of the train would be at Rutland (essential given the track pattern and the need for the Amtrak unit to lead on the higher speed track south of Whitehall, NY), although the Amtrak engine would be turned on the VRS turntable at BTV and would swap positions with the pilot unit and the seats would be set up 50/50 forward and back, as was the case on the VERMONTER when it reversed direction at Palmer from 1995 thru 2015. All very confusing. Ideally we get a wye somewhere near Burlington.
Amtrak has quoted an annual cost of over $1,000,000 if Vermont requested the use of two engines supplied by Amtrak itself every day on this train north of Albany. Vermont has said it would not want to pay that much to do that. VRS has offered to provide a pilot unit at a much lower cost, which would only need to be used between BTV and Rutland. Again ideally a wye at both Rutland and the north end will be used.
A further delay is anticipated in the building of a complete station at Middlebury (the historic depot there is not available as it is in use as a private business site) and in constructing platforms at the existing stations in Vergennes and Burlington. Vergennes historic depot was moved several years ago to an ideal spot along Route 22A just off US7, at the north end of the town, where an existing Park and Ride Lot is already open, but we'll need a platform built to ADA standards to be constructed there. At Burlington Union Station the platform built for the "Champlain Flyer" commuter service, which ran briefly in the early years of this century survives, but will have to be redone, as it is not ADA compliant. It is liklely the Burlington Bike Path will also need to be realigned here. At Rutland the needed station/platform are of course ready, as they are already in use.
A further issue slowing the implementation of this project is the need to rebuild an overpass/quasi-tunnel in downtown Middlebury. This is a complicated project. The VRS roadbed must be lowered to meet modern double-stack/high cube clearance standards and there are businesses above that will be badly disrupted. This is likely to be a 2-3 year project. Thus the projected 2019-20 implementation date for the ETHAN ALLEN extension to Burlington.
Nothing goes fast in this country. This project has been in the works since Vermont got an initial $40,000,000 "earmark" for it thanks to the work of the late Vermont Senator James Jeffords in 1996. 22-24 years for what basically was a 67 mile welded rail/ballast/surfacing/platform project, plus one new station(!) Nothing is quick in railroading anymore. In the end it's likely that the full investment in this project, including the earmark money, three "Tiger" grants and direct state funding will top $80,000,000.
We hope for an approximately 6 to 6 1/2 hour schedule BTV/NYP, compared to 8 1/2 hours on the current (longer) Essex Jct/NYP VERMONTER route, which itself is already over an hour faster than it was before the route was rebuilt north of Springfield in 2011-2015. Hopefully patronage of the ETHAN ALLEN will dramatically grow by directly serving the major college towns of Burlington and Middlebury. Ridership at Essex Junction (for Burlington) on the VERMONTER will probably decline, but the anticipated 2018 extension of that train back north from St. Albans to Montreal is expected to more than compensate.
Member, Vermont Rail Advisory Council of the Vermont Agency of Transportation (Opinions expressed here are my own and are not necessarily those of VTRANS)
It would probably require an engine on each end. There's no good place to turn the train in Burlington, either.
Possibly with a cab car?
This is certainly good news. The Burlington area is a cool place and scenery awesome.
I wonder how they will handle the switchback connection of the Rutland line with the Burlington line at Center Rutland?
Associated Press, May 6
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 throughout New England, officials said.
"This is the type of system that we are building. This is the type of system we want to be connected to, to the rest of the East Coast," Vermont Transportation Secretary Chris Cole said. "This is the future for mobility on the East Coast."
The $10 million federal grant will be a part of the $26 million project. The rest of the cost will be paid for with state money and other federal grants, Cole said.
Currently, Amtrak's Ethan Allen train runs between New York City and Rutland. Cole said that once the western rail project is complete and the line is extended to Burlington, traveling by train between Burlington and New York City, 300 miles south, will become competitive with driving. The trip by car would be close to six hours, and by train it would be about seven hours.
Over the last several years the rail system that runs up the eastern side of Vermont from Massachusetts and Connecticut has been upgraded to improve service on the route of Amtrak's Vermonter, which runs from New York City to St. Albans. Additional upgrades are planned in the other states on the route.
Besides restoring passenger service, the upgraded system should improve freight service in the area, officials said.
"Once the Ethan Allen comes to Burlington we are expecting a significant amount of ridership," Cole said. "We have seven colleges in this town. We have college students who lack mobility options and are going to use the train to get in and out."
Construction should begin next year.
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