jp1822 wrote: ↑Sat May 25, 2024 6:45 pm
Haven’t they done enough planning and assessing? The best I’ve seen in cross-border passenger train service has been between Washington and British Columbia on the Cascades route. Everyone exits the train at final destination and corralled in a way to be clear. The VIA Rail Station used by Montreal has to have something along these lines, or modifications for it, or send the Vermonter and Adirondack over to the EXO Montreal Station - the one I can’t remember the name of at the moment……. The Maple Leaf is a tough one since there’s intermediate stops in Ontario. But here we are just talking about the Vermonter (and sidekick Adirondack that would benefit from said improvements) whereby there’s the last station in Vermont and then the train “expresses” over to Montreal. Drop or don’t have any intermediate stops to expedite. That would have to be done. Sad that it has taken this long to essentially restore the Montrealer as a day train to Canada.
The plan for Montreal preclearance is that there will be no intermediate stops in QC (so St-Laurent goes)
As for Maple Leaf, my view is to truncate in Niagara Falls ON but extend one or more additional Empires there, and leave the rest of the journey for VIA and/or GO to operate. Heading straight to Toronto leaves a lot of custom on the table while adding hours and miles to Amtrak equipment and crews, and if you have to get off for screening why not change equipment too.