Track upgrades have been completed between St. Albans and the Canadian border. It is now up to both governments on how to handle the border crossing. Within the last few years it was decided to have a port of entry in Montreal without having to stop at the border.

As someone who is proponent of more passenger rail, I really want to like this idea.

There are a few issues that will need to be overcome. Unfortunately they will be very hard.

To start I actually work in the rail industry in the state. The biggest hurdle would be getting freight companies to actually go along with such a proposal. The NECR for example hosts The Vermonter from St. Albans to East Northfield. Currently the NECR does not need to implement PTC or positive train control in its locomotives. If you were to increase the frequency of passenger trains from the current two per day, PTC would need to be installed. Freight railroads are not going to want to pay to install PTC, it's expensive and can take years to implement properly.

This leads into the next point. When you add more train frequencies you have to have places to put freight trains in order to make train meets. Typically a passenger train holds the main while a freight train takes the siding. For larger freight trains this can be time consuming and actually limits where a train can go. So you can expand current railroad sidings , add new ones , or implement controlled switch sidings. All of the above cost lots of money. Which again a short line railroad like the NECR does not have the money to implement nor do I think they would want to.

I think continuing to support the expansion of The Vermonter into Montreal is still our best bet for now.