DrToadley OP t1_j6jygfi wrote on January 30, 2023 at 9:30 PM

Reply to comment by KITTYONFYRE in My proposal for near-future inter-town/city passenger rail expansions in Vermont! (MAP) by DrToadley

Compared to some of the other proposals I've done, I think this is pretty feasible!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen_Express

The Ethan Allen Express expansion, a very real network expansion that happened last year, was a pretty BIG project. However, since it utilized existing track it only ended up costing $26 million, a far cry from billions of dollars. Of course, that track is state-owned, which not all of this is, so that would incur additional costs. However, a lot of what I've constructed here also includes other states and cities, including economic centers like Montreal and Boston, which would appreciate a direct connection so not all of the funding would fall on Vermont's back.

Other commenters have discussed federal money being required, which would make sense. As climate change gets worse, though, I think that getting ahead of the curve now before oil prices skyrocket, resources become more scarce, and our environment generally gets ruined would be ideal.

KITTYONFYRE t1_j6k0ltc wrote on January 30, 2023 at 9:44 PM

fair enough, but still, is there anything being done with this proposal? like, are you writing up things to go with it and sending it somewhere, or just reddit? I'd love to support it elsewhere!

> The Ethan Allen Express expansion

this is kind of a disappointment. as a Rutlander, I was excited to be able to take a train to Burlington. I would be willing to pay 50% more to go 20 minutes slower, but having my only option be depart at 8pm arrive at 10pm makes the service completely unusable. I wish I could use it, to send the message "I want this!" and have service be expanded, but getting there that late makes it worthless to me. Plus, no possibility of day trips.

But I'm just whining with no solution or helpful advice here, lol.

SkiingAway t1_j6kszv9 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 12:57 AM

One of the things that makes it a relatively cheap service to operate is running it essentially as an extension of an Albany-terminating NY Empire Service schedule - and that gets NY to pay the subsidy for the NY portion of the run, not VT.

The problem with that is, you can only get away with doing that cheaply with timeslots that work for NY + operational considerations.

What they're currently doing is taking advantage of the overnight to reduce the amount of additional equipment/crew that has to be dedicated to make the service happen.

If you wanted an earlier northbound train, there are two problems:

There's not much in the schedule to work with - the only Albany-terminating train that's earlier is 3hrs earlier. Still not much of a day trip if you get in at 5pm. The earlier trains are heading West after Albany.
It'd likely be sitting idle for more hours that a train is usually operating. If the Northbound train pulls into Burlington at 5pm, now it's stuck there for the night given the >7hr running time to NYC.

If the train had spent the same amount of time as a Southbound to NYC from Albany and pulls into NYC at 5pm, it'd likely be headed out for at least one more service that night.

The current time-slot with a 10PM Burlington arrival + 10AM departure allows pretty full utilization of the "normal" travel hours with minimal down-time. 12hrs off probably also means they've only got a single crew to have to lodge overnight/pay.

If the service got faster, more possibilities would potentially open up for better scheduling.

The other point is that all or most of the existing service is really tailored towards longer-distance travel. This makes sense for a very infrequent train - you're more likely to tailor your schedule to the train when it's already going to be a "big trip" occupying much of the day, and timings on the NYC end of the train are pretty ideal for maximum traveler appeal with a 2:19PM NB departure/5:46PM SB arrival.

KITTYONFYRE t1_j6kuqis wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:09 AM

You're right, and it makes sense why it's like that. It just sucks.

> Still not much of a day trip if you get in at 5pm.

Actually, 5 pm arrival in Burlington would be perfect for a weekend with friends. Like, if I had a magic wand of when arrivals got into Burlington, I'd choose 5 pm.

cbospam1 t1_j6kgnfx wrote on January 30, 2023 at 11:28 PM

If a $26 million dollar project using existing track is a pretty BIG project, you’re proposal is nowhere near feasible.

Dr_L_Church t1_j6ku206 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:04 AM

And that price doesn’t include the middlebury tunnel project as they got that funded through vtrans

Dr_L_Church t1_j6ktlrc wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:01 AM

That $26 million price tag is disingenuous in this conversation as it does not include the cost of the middlebury tunnel project. Some of your other proposed improvements are ludicrous. Rd-Wj will never happen. No existing right of way and very heavy grade territory especially if you want a stop at the top of Killington. You will never be able to secure funding for that project when there is already an existing route RD-BF-Wj. And none of this is going to work with existing freight service on these lines. For viable commuter rail on any of the existing lines you would need considerable amount of double main track installed or a lot more passing sidings (not filled with storage cars).

Edit: it’s the same reason why All Earth Rail failed. Blittersdorf bought a bunch of passenger cars without any thought of how or when or where they would operate and how the existing railroads operate. He wanted to run passenger service between Montpelier and barre… Dangerous heavy grade territory that is FRA excepted (illegal to run passenger service on).

DrToadley OP t1_j6lah3s wrote on January 31, 2023 at 3:07 AM

Looks like we have a lot of work to do before a lot of these lines are feasible. Thank you for that reality check! I think we need to focus on the lines which would be obviously sound economic investments (Montreal to Boston being #1). However, I also don't want to dream too small, either, especially in a theoretical Reddit thread.