Group plots Montreal-Boston overnight train, with stop at Old Orchard Beach

Didn't know under what discussion topic to post this article from the Thursday 8/25/22 Montreal Gazette so I stuck it here for your reading pleasure.

Excerpts:

The creation of a Montreal-Boston overnight train will be on the agenda Sept. 1 when several dozen Canadian and American elected officials and business people meet in Coaticook in the Eastern Townships.
François Pepin, president of Fondation Trains de nuit, which is promoting the project, is convinced there would be a market for a night train between Montreal and Boston.

At about 14 hours, the trip would be more than double the drive time between the two cities.

“It would be for people who don’t want to drive or people who don’t have a car,” said Pepin, a retired Société de transport de Montréal planner and past president of Trajectoire Québec, a transit lobby group.

“It would be cheaper than planes … but mainly the appeal of the train is comfort — you can do something else instead of driving and getting stuck in traffic.

“On the train, you can work, eat in the dining car and sleep in your room.”

It would be a two-stage project — first Montreal-Sherbrooke, then a link to Boston, via Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, Pepin said.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local- ... 1661466184

This of course has been proposed before. Another option would be via Springfield which would offer a few more connection options and higher population centers.

Another option would be via Springfield which would offer a few more connection options and higher population centers.

I thought the same until I realized that the Canadians want to max out stops in PQ (hence to first phase to Sherbrooke) before turning south. There are not enough population centers directly south of Montreal for them to route to Springfield. In any case, it'll never come to pass.

That's a pretty interesting Route they're going for, it might be nice and scenic, with it going through Northern NH and Vermont, but of course the best and fastest way to route a Boston to Montreal train would be up the NH Main via Lowell, Nashua, Manchester, and Concord before switching to the route that goes to White River Junction from Concord. The problem with that is the Concord to White River Junction route no longer exists.

mbrproductions wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 12:49 pm That's a pretty interesting Route they're going for, it might be nice and scenic, with it going through Northern NH and Vermont . . .

But it probably will be dark for most of it.

hrsn wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 9:51 am

Another option would be via Springfield which would offer a few more connection options and higher population centers.

I thought the same until I realized that the Canadians want to max out stops in PQ (hence to first phase to Sherbrooke) before turning south. There are not enough population centers directly south of Montreal for them to route to Springfield. In any case, it'll never come to pass.

And the Montreal to Old Orchard Beach pair should be very popular now that I think about it a bit.

How would customs and border control be handled? Even if the preclearance facility in Montreal finally gets built how do you handle stops between Montreal and the border? It's going to be really unpopular if the train as to stop at the border in the middle of the night; especially if passengers have to get off for processing.

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Interesting proposal for sure, though I've always found the idea of a Boston-Portland-Montreal train to make no sense directionally speaking. You go about 100 miles to the northeast and then make a hard left turn towards Quebec?

If this were to serve as a way of combining two separate Boston-Portland and Portland-Montreal trains with the same set of equipment that would be another story (much like the when the Metro-North RR Waterbury-Stamford diesel trainset was being used on a Stamford-GCT train after a 5-10 minute layover allowing for a technical 1 seat ride.)

Of course I also still believe the 20th Century Limited had an inferior routing compared to the Broadway Limited so who am I to judge..

In any case I think the Montreal-Sherbrooke "commuter train" segment is the most viable part of this. If only it could be the groundwork for the return of a 21st Century Atlantic Limited/Scotian route. But tis another subject for another time.

It looks to me that the most likely market for an overnight train on the route originally proposed would be Montreal-Old Orchard Beach; I believe U.S. beach resorts are a popular summer destination for Quebeckers (to the extent that staffs at some New Jersey beach towns have learned enough French to accommodate French-speaking visitors). And visitors from Quebec whose purpose is to spend lots of time on the beach won't really need a car while there if they're in a walkable beach town. A summer-only, weekend-only overnight train might work, but a major attraction would be those intermediate stops in Quebec -- not everyone would want to drive to Montreal to catch the train -- and Customs would have to work out something better than having the crew walk the train as it approaches the border in the midnight hours flipping on the lights in the coaches and calling out "ISLAND POND, ISLAND POND, THIS STATION ISLAND POND, ALL PASSENGERS DETRAIN WITH YOUR LUGGAGE FOR CUSTOMS EXAMINATION."

It looks like they're planning a Montreal-Maine train that continues on to Boston. That is, I think the long route is a feature, both because of reviving service Montreal-Sherbrooke and because of going to Maine, rather than a bug because it's not the most direct or fastest route to Boston. No Amtrak or Via toes along the way until after Portland. Little to no freight interference most of the way. They don't need all that huge a number of people to ride. I wonder how many of their passengers they expect to board in Boston, and how many they expect to board in ME, NH, or even Haverhill if they stop there.

Montreal and environs to Maine sounds like a tourist draw in summer and shoulder seasons. In winter? not so much a skiing slope difficulty about the same.

Maybe in winter they could change the schedule from night to day, oriented around taking people to Bethel from Boston etc. Are there any winter destinations at other stations?

According to Monday's Philadelphia Inquirer, the Cape May County (NJ) Tourism Director reports that since the Covid border restrictions were lifted last December Canadian visitors to County beaches returned at about 75-80% of pre-pandemic levels, habitually driving in large groups. If the Maine beach towns experienced something similar there might be a market for a Montreal train on weekends if the economics worked out. Instead of driving in separate cars, they could party on the way down if facilities were provided on the train.

Arborwayfan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 2:36 pm Little to no freight interference most of the way. They don't need all that huge a number of people to ride. I wonder how many of their passengers they expect to board in Boston, and how many they expect to board in ME, NH, or even Haverhill if they stop there.

They'd have to work around CP, and SLR who specifically runs at night. I can't imagine much NH traffic, I don't see the average Berlin/Gorham resident needing this trip, let alone the fact that they can drive to both points faster by being in the middle.

I should have been more specific. I was of passengers boarding along the Maine coast (such as folks from Quebec going home) and in southern NH (eg Durham, not Gorham ). I can't imagine anyone boarding in Gorham or Berlin either, at least not in the middle of the night.

Do you think SLR would be resistant or would welcome some additional revenue?