I think it’s a bit of a skewed statistic to say that your 12 friends who have only been in school during the height of Covid lockdowns and remote learning have never used a physical library and then project that to the whole student body and say that that is normal. While I personally did not use the physical library much at Castleton, many (more than 12…) of my classmates did on a regular basis.

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

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).

That’s the point I have been trying to make, Burlington to Boston or Burlington to Montreal in 90 minutes is never going to happen.

From Essex / St. Albans. Not from Burlington. And it didn’t get there in 90 minutes.

What do I know, I just work for the railroad 🤷‍♂️. Once again I’m all for investing in rail infrastructure and expanding passenger routes, however, to call it a modest proposal for a 90 minute train ride from Burlington to Boston shows a level of ignorance in how our rail infrastructure is built in this country. The tracks just don’t go there. Also, if you were to construct new tracks from Burlington to Boston in a complete straight line, ignoring all obstacles such as private property, waterways, mountains, other infrastructure, it is a distance of 180 miles. That would require a train capable of traveling 120+ miles per hour. Amtraks Acela can travel that fast, but once again the cost to build, maintain, and operate are extraordinary and no small task. Hell, Amtrak is spending 117 billion dollars to upgrade and maintain the northeast corridor (Acela trains) over the next 15 years, and that route is already there, the rails and the signals and the sidings and the double main tracks are all already built. The cost of building a direct route capable of traveling from Burlington to Boston in 90 minutes would be hundreds of billions if not a trillion dollars and take decades to build, that is if it didn’t get hung up by act 250 and NIMBYism holing up the project left right and center. So while I would love that kind of high speed rail project in our little state, I think our money would do better to improve our existing rail network and build reliable intracity service access across Vermont.

But the problem is their rail lines were designed with passengers in mind from the get go, ours were designed for freight. You can’t get there from here. Not without buying hundreds if not thousands of people out of their homes to build new more direct rail lines. I’m all for investing in rail infrastructure and expanding passenger routes, but we need to be realistic about what is and isn’t possible. Routes from Burlington to Montreal or Boston are possible, but 90 minutes would require direct routes with high speed rail. Hell, 290 takes 90 minutes to get to Rutland from Burlington, only marginally faster than a car.

I think you greatly underestimate the time, infrastructure, and cost of converting our existing rail lines or building new ones to accommodate high speed passenger rail. The railroads in the us were built for freight. They go to places where there are freight customers. There is no straight path between 2 points. Burlington to Boston just doesn’t exist. The best connection would be BD to St Albans to white river to Springfield MA to Bos. And most if not all of that is single track lines. No way you are making that in 90 minutes regardless of how fast they can go, even if they don’t have to stop and wait for a passing train. BD to Montreal would be more attainable, but unlikely as there is already a train that runs from Essex to St. Albans. More likely for the Vermonter to be extended to Montreal (there are tracks that go that direction) than to have the Ethan Allen extended to Montreal (tracks between Burlington and St. Albans are not suited for passenger service). Though I could also see the benefit of passenger service from NYP to Montreal. No matter what you are not getting there in 90 minutes without billions of investment in infrastructure.