Article: VT: Passenger train routes may be cut

Article in this morning's Burlington (VT) Free Press does not spell good news for Amtrak in the state...

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/arti ... S/81204048

In my opinion, this is the absolute worst time to reduce Amtrak service. In our state, we have limited public transportation options - bus service has just been cut. We have 2 daily Amtrak trains - and on both, ridership has surged. Sure, gas costs less than $2/gal and keeps falling, but its most likely not going to stay at that level. After 2 years of late trains, the tracks are finally back up to passenger train speeds and the Vermonter is seeing incredible OTP. Ridership climbed all year long and remains strong. If the Vermonter is cut back to White River Jct, it would no longer serve Essex Jct (station for Burlington, the state's largest city and busiest Amtrak station in the state) or Montpelier (the state capital), along with Waterbury and Randolph. Are people going to want to drive 1-2 hours to get down to WRJ to get on the train? If I drive, that's 1/4 of my ride to Connecticut. Cut back the train and ridership would free-fall.

Hopefully something can be worked out....

Brief excerpt from the article:

Each year the state provides a nearly $5 million subsidy to operate Amtrak’s two Vermont lines: The Vermonter, which runs between St. Albans and Washington, D.C., and the Ethan Allen Express, which runs between Rutland to New York City.

Where does Vermont find the money? The economy just shed half a million jobs in one month.

Everything a State pays for is about to take a hit. Education, health, transportation, law enforcement, tourism development, agriculture. They're all going to take a hit.

Interesting figures revealed in the article. Simple arithmetic leads to what appears to be a Vermont taxpayer outlay of nominally $60 per passenger. A quick perusal of Amtrak's website would suggest that any possible intra-state rail fare is a relatively small fraction of what the taxpayer is chipping in. You don't suppose Vermont will wake up and realize that their funding problem resides with the passenger and not the taxpayer?

John_Perkowski wrote:Brief excerpt from the article:
Where does Vermont find the money? The economy just shed half a million jobs in one month.

Everything a State pays for is about to take a hit. Education, health, transportation, law enforcement, tourism development, agriculture. They're all going to take a hit.

Seems like a downward spiral, then. If we can't maintain our infrastructure or our transportation and other essential services, then we might as well just give up!

That's why we have legislatures in a representative democracy. They get to make tough choices.

In situations like this, and with infrastructure in general, it's nearly impossible to perform a wholistic cost-benefit analysis. Comparing ticket revenue with state expenditures is part of that analysis, but some of the hard to quantify effects of the service on the region's econmy as a whole are important too. Unfortunately, any attempt to quantify such factores usually ends up being guesswork.

Not good news, but not surprising. As Col. Perkowski suggests, we're probably going to hear more stories like this as the national economy continues to shut down. Vermont is a state with a small population and limited industry aside from tourism, and intercity rail service may not be the highest priority when it comes to allocating what tax money is available for state services. (And yes, I know that trains bring in tourists, but the percentage is tiny compared with autos.)

could vermont save some money by just having it operate from NHV or SPG - St. Albans? It always seemed like it wasn't necessary for it to operate as a thru train from vermont to DC.

hi55us wrote:could vermont save some money by just having it operate from NHV or SPG - St. Albans? It always seemed like it wasn't necessary for it to operate as a thru train from vermont to DC.

First I'm not sure that they could initially save money by doing just that, since I would hope that Amtrak is only charging them a subsidy to support the run from either New Haven or Sprinfield and not to support the entire run from DC.

That said however, I also suspect that would cause a drop in ridership, which might well offset at least part of the savings if indeed VT is paying to subsidized the entire run. People don't like to change trains, especially when they are hauling a few suitcases.

I think whatever happens to VT service, something needs to change. Right now, vermonters are paying a lot of money for the Vermonter, which is really a lousy transportation option. As I'm sure has been discussed at length before, the speed of the train can't compete with car or bus service on any part of the route (north of SPG). In fact, last time I took the train up there, I only went as far as white river junction and had someone pick me up for the rest of the way to Burlington because it cut the time nearly in half. Furthermore, the schedule excludes the possibility of taking the train to VT for a weekend - one must travel all day sunday.

As for changing trains in a place like New Haven, after being on the Vermonter for 7 1/2 hours (for a trip that should take no more than 5 by car) one might appreciate the opportunity for some fresh air. I've never minded it. Is there quantitative data about reduced ridership due to train changes? I wonder if the issue, frequently brought up, is really a red herring.

Gas prices- just about all references to gas prices i read on here earlier in the year were declaring the gas prices were up for good, and hurray for public transit. Now that they're down, gas prices are sure to go back up, just as sure as they were going to stay up. How do you know they are going to go up? (I sure didn't know they were going to come down... can anyone know what they're going to do?)

My wish list for the Vermonter has been increased frequency or a schedule change so people could get to/from southern new england/ new york/ boston via train without spending the whole weekend traveling. Why does it have to be a thru train to washington? my feeling is that the trip is too long, and more suited to flying.

I hope that the Vermonter sticks around. I think that even some simple schedule changes would make it a more useful route (at least for me). But i'm not paying the taxes, and I really wonder what benefit vermonters themselves are getting out of it.

The train is selling out Every Friday and Sunday in both directions even now. you cannot increase ridership much more then it is. I think to even consider a cut is absoulute B^%$&**T.
allthough gas is cheap, does anyone factor in the Maitnence of their car? After Sunday nights nightmare on I-91. It took me 4 hours to go from Brattleburo to white river JCT with locked solid traffic on I-91. u bet I would take the train over my car any day. right now I currently attend Lyndon State College but plan on Transfering to WCSU Danbury CT where I would keep my car up in Bellows falls for ski season and take the train to Vermont on Fridays and Leave on Sundays and sometimes mondays.

http://railvermont.org

Ah, but you're staying well south of WRJ, and have a pleasant noontime departure for a 4 1/2 hour trip. This, I think, makes sense. When I visit Burlington, I usually leave around noon for my 4 1/2 hour car trip home to southern CT. (I've only once hit traffic on that stretch of 91, and it was the day after New Year's 08- that was a long trip.) I would at least consider the train from burlington if there were a noontime departure.

North of WRJ, the appeal really decreases, I think.

theozno wrote:The train is selling out Every Friday and Sunday in both directions even now. you cannot increase ridership much more then it is. I think to even consider a cut is absoulute B^%$&**T.

The train sells out on the weekends, they charge what in this day and age is an extraordinarily low price, and they don't have enough money for the service. This is essentially how the Soviet Union operated for so long with people lining up around the block to buy a piece of meat for next to nothing, assuming there was any to be had. How many economics courses does one have to take to figure out what steps to take?

hi55us wrote:could vermont save some money by just having it operate from NHV or SPG - St. Albans? It always seemed like it wasn't necessary for it to operate as a thru train from vermont to DC.

The state subsidizes the run north of Springfield to St Albans.

As far as cutting it back, I think it would make most sense running NY-Penn to Burlington (not St Albans) on the infamous "Conn River Line" in Mass. If that one move on the Conn River could be done, then over an hour off schedules could be cut, thus making the train more competitive. As far as the slow ride north of WRJ... not really. Track speed is no different than south of WRJ....59 mph. Presently, 1 hr 30 min is carded for trains between WRJ and Waterbury, a drive I can do in 1 hour. Though this line has never been a high speed route.

The schedule should be tweaked, to run later on Fridays and Sundays so that a whole weekend is not wasted traveling - I run into the same problem, requiring me to leave VT on a Friday morning, getting to CT in the evening and spending most of Sunday returning. No significant schedule change would work positively until the Conn River Line in Mass is obtained.

Finally, the state was considering purchasing "DMUs" (read-modern RDCs for those who don't know) to replace present Genny-Amfleet trainsets on the line. The theory was that only 2 cars would be needed and all pax would x-fr at New Haven. The plus side was that a second daily roundtrip would operate as far north as White River Jct. If you drop off all Vermonter passengers at New Haven to fend for themselves or fight for seats on a crowded "NERegional" from Boston, shlepping their own luggage, you're going to lose ridership.
You can do a search on this forum as we've discussed the DMUs before.

shadyjay wrote:As far as cutting it back, I think it would make most sense running NY-Penn to Burlington (not St Albans) on the infamous "Conn River Line" in Mass. If that one move on the Conn River could be done, then over an hour off schedules could be cut, thus making the train more competitive.

The problem is that with no passenger trains and very limited freight service, the B&M between Springfield and East Northfield is now fifty miles of mostly 10 mph trackage. Given the astonishing cost of trackwork these days, you have to figure a least a half million dollars a mile if not more to get it up to sensible passenger train operating speeds. Where does that money come from? And while I agree that Burlington could be a better northern terminal than St. Albans, you again have a slow track problem on the branch from Essex Junction that would need a further infusion of cash.

theozno wrote:The train is selling out Every Friday and Sunday in both directions even now. you cannot increase ridership much more then it is.

But the ridership numbers in the Free Press article indicate that the Vermonter handles an average of only 172 passengers a day in Vermont, or 86 per train. If the weekend trips sell out, that means that on, say, Tuesdays in November the train must be almost empty. As a practical matter I'm not sure how you can increase midweek business in the non-tourist season since the train is too slow for most business travelers and there probably isn't much else of a market at those times.

My own strategy to boost ridership would be to restore service to Montreal, but there are costs associated with that too, especially since the CN trackage north of the border that the train formerly used has also been downgraded since it became freight only and would need work.