Vermont Rail Action Network

Amtrak has hired new station caretakers at Rutland and Montpelier Junction.  We wish them well and are glad for their service.  Do say hello when you pass through and thank them for keeping the station open for you!

Amtrak's Vermonter was 100% on time in March of 2012!!  Given murphy's law, that's pretty amazing!  The Ethan Allen did well too, at 85.5% on-time.  Averaged together, Amtrak trains in Vermont were 92.7% on-time.  The 12 month average for the Vermonter is 95.6%, which is pretty darn good.

This is big.  Worth a celebration!  (Worth a ride!)

The New England Central Railroad has finished three quarters of the Vermonter route upgrade, part of the ARRA stimulus fund.

All 18 trainloads of rail has been laid while ties, surfacing and bridge work will continue south of White River Junction this spring and summer to instal 50,000 ties, redo 25 switches and strengthen and speed up 15 bridges.

At certain times the work will cause delay's to Amtrak's Vermonter by up to 30 minutes.  This is because after new ties and ballast have been installed, the track must settle a bit and slow orders are imposed until it does.

When finished the project will result in a schedule within Vermont that is 27 minutes faster.  Massachusetts and Connecticut have their own projects (Massachusetts will be done in 2013, Connecticut in 2016) that will bring futher speed improvements en-route to New York.

The project has received a "no findings" status from the federal audit, which is good.

The goal is to finish work by September 12th, after which the track geometry car will visit and measure and certify to work, with speeds raised by the fall time change.

The project is on track to be the first "high-speed" stimulus fund project completed.

Vermont's two senators signed a letter to the Appropriations Committee requesting funds for passenger rail.  Also Senator Sanders also asked the T-HUD subcommittee for report language that would make a future Western Corridor project more competitive.

The Burlington Free Press' Nancy Remson reports that Vermont Rail System has "moved from poorest-performing Amtrak host in the country to a top performer in just 12 months."

The improvement follows $750,000 of track work the railroad did this summer using it's own funds.

The number of delay minutes for Ethan Allen dropped from 11,068 for December 2010 to 135 for December 2011, according to the Free Press, despite a shortening of the schedule by 15 minutes.

"That improvement represents a 99 percent reduction in delays along the route," Joe McHugh, Amtrak's vice president for government affairs and corporation communications, wrote to the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

Ridership on the Ethan Allen is up noticibly, about ten percent over last year.  When the Vermonter timekeeping improved several years ago, the same thing happened: ridership grew and hasn't stopped since.

"VRS did an exceptional job executing the plan in a timely manner and addressing nearly all the slow orders along the route," Amtrak's McHugh wrote. "Only the devastating effects of Hurricane Irene slowed their progress, and even that set the plan back by just one month."

"The VRS team are deserving of praise and credit for their response and hard work," McHugh said.

"I don't want anything to jeopardize our New York-to-Burlington train," Senate Transportation Committee Chair Dick Mazza told the Free Press. "I'm very happy they got together and resolved their issues."

Amtrak's Ethan Allen will be leaving Rutland 15 minutes later and making it's trip 15 minutes faster, thanks to summer trackwork by the Vermont Rail System between Whitehall and Rutland.

The new schedule will be effective December 12th.  Times between New York and Fort Edward NY will be the same, only the timing at Rutland and Castleton is changing.

Vermont Rail System spent $750,000 of it's own money for the work, surfacing 8 miles of track and replacing 12,000 ties, part of it's "Get Well Plan" for the service.  Trackwork wrapped up yesterday.