Passenger Trains > Amtrak Vermonter ‘Test Train’ to Montreal?

There’s scuttlebutt on a couple of the other forums about an Amtrak Vermonter 'Test Train' to Montreal with Wick Moorman aboard an office car. Anyone have any details?

The current Vermonter arrives St Albans around 9pm.

Would an 11.30 or midnight arrival in Montreal be attractive?

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> The current Vermonter arrives St Albans around
> 9pm.
>
> Would an 11.30 or midnight arrival in Montreal be
> attractive?
>
> Posted from Android

Probably more attractive than a 9pm arrival in the middle of nowhere, er, St Albans.
:-)

St Albans is NOT the middle of nowhere!


(It's actually off to one side, on the edge of nowhere, where it will attract less attention :>))

Well with the current Southbound schedule, it could work. Northbound, the Montrealer was an overnight train. Not sure how much earlier you could start out of DC to make it work.

njmidland Wrote:
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> Well with the current Southbound schedule, it
> could work. Northbound, the Montrealer was an
> overnight train. Not sure how much earlier you
> could start out of DC to make it work.

Yes. My recollection was that the Montrealer usually changed crews and locked up the booze around breakfast time at St Albans.

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/07/18-amtrak-montrealer

The Montrealer (southbound Amtrak name was originally The Washingtonian if I recall correctly) used to leave NY Penn around 9 or 930 pm, while the southbound left Montreal around 7 PM, with arrival at NYP scheduled for around 7:30 am. Additional Amfleet would be added in NY for run to DC.

Overnight schedule was in place before the Adirondack was restored on its daytime schedule. Together the two roughly replicated the twice daily service that was in effect until May 1, 1971, although at that point Laurentian (day) and Montreal Limited (overnight) both ran over former NY Central GCT-Albany and D&H Albany to Montreal.

Vermonter was put in place as a day train when Amtrak was forced to halt Montrealer due to track conditions north of St. Albans.

The Vermonter will likely remain as a day train to best serve its primary market and patron: Vermont.

What's totally crazy is that no one has thought to implement a connecting Montreal bus service (costing next to nothing) as an intermediate step.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/17 08:48 by reindeerflame.

reindeerflame Wrote:
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>
> What's totally crazy is that no one has thought to
> implement a connecting Montreal bus service
> (costing next to nothing) as an intermediate step.

They did!.....for the fist couple of years after the Vermonter began running there was a connecting bus but it left Montreal very early in the morning and arrived late. Not many rode it

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19981025ne&item=0029

It was Greyhound. It was a dedicated frequency northbound, but a Boston frequency southbound. When Greyhound slashed service about 10 years ago, they killed that frequency, and also wiped St Albans off their map. I rode it twice. It delivered about a dozen people to the train. Since then, there has been no attempt to put anything back.

A dozen people is all you need for the connection to be viable. You can allocate all of the train revenue that those dozen people generate to the costs of the bus, under the assumption that this is all new revenue, which you wouldn't have without the bus.

I agree, a dedicated minibus should have replaced the Greyhound service. Perhaps the Montrealer advocates see that as an inhibitor to establishing real rail service.

What you describe is an exercise is incremental economics. But too many people in power cannot grasp Micro-econ 101, especially Amtrak itself, more obsessed with cost centers and fully allocated costs..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/17 16:28 by joemvcnj.

march_hare Wrote:
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> St Albans is NOT the middle of nowhere!
>
>
> (It's actually off to one side, on the edge of
> nowhere, where it will attract less attention
> :>))


Hey man, that town is a very important place. My railroad's dispatching office is in St Albans (IORY/G&W). :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/17 20:20 by TWC.

< Vermonter was put in place as a day train when Amtrak was forced to halt Montrealer due to track conditions north of St. Albans.>

That is not what happened.
Mercer Consulting decided the Montrealer had to come off, which it did, because of high CN crew costs north of St Albans. It used the same exact tracks as the Adirondack north of Cantic. Vermont DOT decided to replace it with a day train.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/17 07:52 by joemvcnj.

thanks for clarification -