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.
The work focused on raising the speed on the slowest spots rather than increasing top speed. The easiest - and cheapest - way to go fast is not to go slow! Eliminating slow spots is cheaper than raising the top speed, yet does more for a trains performance.
Freight hauling Vermont Rail System owns and maintains most of the route between Whitehall and Rutland. Amtrak is a tenant and pays VRS for the additional expense of maintaining the tracks to passenger train standards. In addition the contract includes incentive payments for on-time service.
When the Ethan Allen began operation in 1996, the previously freight-only line was rebuilt to allow 59mph passenger trains, but the work was done on the cheap and several problems were not addressed. Five miles of old jointed rail (the kind that make the "clickity clack") were left in place. This rail, now warped with age is fine for freight trains but causes passenger train speed to be restricted and gives passengers a rough ride. Replacing this rail is a $3-5 million dollar project--beyond the capacity of the Vermont Rail System. It should have been done when the passenger service started.
Vermont Rail System has requested that Vermont include this work in the transportation budget, a request we support.
The Whitehall-Rutland route is a particularly critical route. The nightly freight train operated by Vermont Rail System brings upwards of 100 cars from the Canadian Pacific Railroad connection which are then split up in Rutland and forwarded to Burlington, Middlebury, Proctor, Bellows Falls and elsewhere. The line hauls critical commodities for Vermont including most of the oil and gas used in Northern Vermont, much of the output from the Omya plant north of Rutland, much feed grain. Freight traffic is increasing. The railroad also forwards traffic through Vermont to other New England points via this route. Amtrak's Ethan Allen uses this route between New York, Albany, Saratoga NY and Rutland. Future passenger trains to Burlington would continue on this route.
Not only is this route a freight connection for Vermont Rail System customers, but it also ferries connecting traffic for the New England Central Railroad from CP's international network, via the Green Mountain Railroad to Bellows Falls. Vermont Rail System has also invested in improving track on the Green Mountain, but a similar (but worse) problem of old rail exists there too. The availability of multiple connections is a real competitive advantage for Vermont railroads -- and the Vermont businesses that depend on rail. Besides increasing the number of places you can get to, having multiple connections encourages competitive rates.
Although there are only two or three trains a day in each direction, they sometimes delay each other because there are no passing sidings on the route. If the evening Amtrak train returning from New York is late, it forces the nightly freight train to leave late, making it harder to complete it's run to Whitehall and back to Rutland before Amtrak leaves in the morning. In those circumstances, the freight train is either forced to cool it's heels in Whithall for hours (which costs the railroad extra crew hours and then delays arrivals for freight customers) or delay the passenger train's departure from Rutland.
Improvements to come in New York state will help the situation. New double track between Albany and Schenectady will ease a notorious bottleneck. If a northbound train arrives close to on-time, the cascading effect of delay will be reduced and so will the resulting further delay if the southbound shows up late in Schenectady and has to wait for a train in the other direction.
It's likely that the number of freight trains on the route will increase. There may be more passenger trains as well. More trains will require creative scheduling or passing sidings.
It is expected that these improvements will lead to increased ridership. A faster, on-time train is a more competitive choice. Better train service will make Rutland and it's region a more competitive choice for visiting New Yorkers, leading to an economic gain.
After Hurricane Irene, this line was reopened in three days, providing the only rail route into Rutland and Western Vermont. Completion of the upgrade was delayed a month by Irene.
