Regional New England Rail (Amtrak & State DOT & NEC)

[F-Line to Dudley]

Back when Burlington Union Station reopened, I wondered if it might spark any interest in upgrading the Winooski Branch to allow the Vermonter to serve Burlington directly instead of its stop 5 miles outside of town in Essex Junction. I’m sure a healthy proportion (maybe even the majority) of Essex Junction’s inbound ridership is people headed to Burlington. It would add time to the total trip, since trains would have to back out of Union Station and return to the mainline like the Downeaster does to serve the Portland Jetport station, but in practice there’s only one stop north of Essex Junction: St Albans, which does about 4,000 riders per year. The cost of upgrading the branch was estimated at $4 million a decade ago, but I haven’t seen any interest yet. Maybe it’s just not worth the operational hassle.

Given that VTrans's #1 pax rail priority in the state is getting the Vermonter re-extended to Montreal, there would be zero interest in such a self-kneecapping reroute. There's a large ridership affinity between Vermont and Quebec, and Essex Junction already has Green Mountain Transit bus #2 pinging from there to Downtown every 20 minutes. GMT's website even highlights the bus slots that time directly with Vermonter slots. Re-routing to Burlington Union Station adds very little new ridership since nearly all of it would just migrate laterally from Essex Jct. And it would be a schedule-killer if you tried to shoehorn all of the above into one routing, as the connecting branch is 7-1/2 miles long one-way and traces a very indirect perimeter around the city before diving downtown.

 

[riptide]

Re-routing to Burlington Union Station adds very little new ridership since nearly all of it would just migrate laterally from Essex Jct. And it would be a schedule-killer if you tried to shoehorn all of the above into one routing, as the connecting branch is 7-1/2 miles long one-way and traces a very indirect perimeter around the city before diving downtown.

This is what I was wondering. If stopping in downtown Burlington wouldn't make the Vermonter a significantly more appealing travel option for people headed to Burlington (i.e. 75% of Essex Junction ridership shifts to Union Station PLUS you get another Essex Junction's worth on top of that), then it wouldn't be worth the operational hassle.

And yes, once trains are running to Montreal, you'd inconvenience way too many riders by running this service patterns. I was only thinking of it as something you'd do in the interim. And judging by the way CN hasn't been playing ball with Amtrak on the Adirondack (same route the Vermonter would take through Quebec), "the interim" could be a long while.

I'm not aware of any proposals to extend the Ethan Allen Express to Montreal (which would be the other way passenger trains might use the Winooski Branch). Wouldn't that be the more attractive of the two routings through Vermont for passengers originating in Montreal? Direct service to Burlington at roughly the same length of time it takes to reach NYC as the Vermonter.

 

[themissinglink]

I'm not aware of any proposals to extend the Ethan Allen Express to Montreal (which would be the other way passenger trains might use the Winooski Branch). Wouldn't that be the more attractive of the two routings through Vermont for passengers originating in Montreal? Direct service to Burlington at roughly the same length of time it takes to reach NYC as the Vermonter.

There has been serious talk about extending the Ethan Allen Express to Essex Junction, allowing for a transfer with the Vermonter.

 

[HenryAlan]

All aboard! Amtrak ridership out of Burlington outpaces expectations

After years of work and millions spent on construction to bring Amtrak to Burlington, was it all worth it? Our Katharine Huntley finds out.

www.wcax.com

Now we just need a timed transfer between the Vermonter and some sort of Boston-Springfield service.

 

[Longfellow]

Stuck for an hour today waiting on the tracks in Plaistow because a freight train broke down. Joe Brandon, please save us
please double track the downeaster

 

[riptide]

MSN

The Northern Tier Passenger Rail idea is back in the news after some college students from Western Mass met with Gov. Healey to talk about it. Apparently MassDOT is going to apply for the Northern Tier to be accepted into the FRA’s Corridor ID program.

From the article:

Monica G. Tibbits-Nutt, secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, was in the Pioneer Valley for the second straight day having talked about highway funding in Conway.

She said passenger rail — either through Springfield or through Greenfield — is part of the Healey administration’s answer to the housing crisis.

In the short term, Tibbits-Nutt said bus service could provide more transportation options.

 

[Tallguy]

MSN

The Northern Tier Passenger Rail idea is back in the news after some college students from Western Mass met with Gov. Healey to talk about it. Apparently MassDOT is going to apply for the Northern Tier to be accepted into the FRA’s Corridor ID program.

From the article:

Okay article but claims that CSX owns most of the track when I don't think they own any of it. PAS and MBTA, yes?

 

[Brattle Loop]

Okay article but claims that CSX owns most of the track when I don't think they own any of it. PAS and MBTA, yes?

Pan Am Southern is half-owned by CSX and half NS. Or, at least it was, I didn't think that had changed. Still true that CSX doesn't directly own the PAS tracks.

 

[Tallguy]

Th

Pan Am Southern is half-owned by CSX and half NS. Or, at least it was, I didn't think that had changed. Still true that CSX doesn't directly own the PAS tracks.

Thanks, but I didn't think I needed to explain that

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

MSN

The Northern Tier Passenger Rail idea is back in the news after some college students from Western Mass met with Gov. Healey to talk about it. Apparently MassDOT is going to apply for the Northern Tier to be accepted into the FRA’s Corridor ID program.

From the article:

"...through Springfield or through Greenfield"???

Does that mean they're finally willing to look at the (far better) Z-shaped option to North Adams? The Fitchburg route was pretty much garbage on ridership given that Fitchburg was the literal only stop ID'd on the preferred service plan for the Greenfield-east corridor, and the travel times were not exactly awesome despite all that expressing. They'd do so much better on ridership tapping the existing B&A + Conn River stops.

 

[BeansTheCat]

"...through Springfield or through Greenfield"???

Does that mean they're finally willing to look at the (far better) Z-shaped option to North Adams? The Fitchburg route was pretty much garbage on ridership given that Fitchburg was the literal only stop ID'd on the preferred service plan for the Greenfield-east corridor, and the travel times were not exactly awesome despite all that expressing. They'd do so much better on ridership tapping the existing B&A + Conn River stops.

My reading of those comments is that both East-West Rail (through Springfield) and Northern Tier (through Greenfield) can help relieve housing pressure in Boston. Given that both these projects seem much more political than practical (in their current forms), I doubt we will see any push to move Northern Tier off the Fitchburg route.

 

[EastCambridgeDreamer]

"...through Springfield or through Greenfield"???

Does that mean they're finally willing to look at the (far better) Z-shaped option to North Adams? The Fitchburg route was pretty much garbage on ridership given that Fitchburg was the literal only stop ID'd on the preferred service plan for the Greenfield-east corridor, and the travel times were not exactly awesome despite all that expressing. They'd do so much better on ridership tapping the existing B&A + Conn River stops.

The Z-shaped option? Could you say more about what that routing would look like?

 

[themissinglink]

The Z-shaped option? Could you say more about what that routing would look like?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Yes...instead of using the Fitchburg Line all the way to Greenfield Station and making only only one intermediate stop the whole way in Fitchburg, the Z-shaped route would run out of South Station on the Inland Route to Springfield with stops at Framingham, Worcester, Palmer, and Springfield...then turn north on the Conn River Line making the Vermonter and Valley Flyer stops at Holyoke, Northampton, and Greenfield. It has the advantage of much higher ridership because it would function as a load-bearing Inland Route slot on that much denser service layer cake while serving the already popular CT River Valley stops with beneficial service increases and direct access to Boston. And it would be 2-3 minutes outright faster than the Fitchburg route on the lower-tier investment plan of Class 3 track in addition to all that vastly better ridership. It's only if you do the higher-tier investment plan of Class 4 track on the Fitchburg route that there's any time savings, and they'd be minor. The most fatal flaw of the Fitchburg route is the lack of stop selection. Fitchburg isn't large enough unto itself to be the only intermediate stop...it's only the 6th highest ridership stop on Fitchburg Line commuter rail. You'd need to add at least a 128-situated stop and a 495-situated stop to tap adequate demand from that corridor, but once you do that it doesn't even beat the Z-shaped routing on the higher-tier investment plan. So it's basically a permanently defective routing, and the state is committing malpractice continuing to shovel study resources towards it instead of bootstrapping on COMPASSrail and the Inland Route with an even more flush service plan. Based on the somewhat dire-looking results of the study they should be pivoting at this point to the Z-shape for rail and advancing buses on the Route 2 corridor for Fitchburg connectivity. Politics makes it uncertain that they're actually going to follow Captain Obvious and pivot; they're probably just going to keep pounding at the sunk cost of studying the Fitchburg route because the pols along that corridor have already been tickled by the possibility of free money.

 

[Stlin]

Yes...instead of using the Fitchburg Line all the way to Greenfield Station and making only only one intermediate stop the whole way in Fitchburg, the Z-shaped route would run out of South Station on the Inland Route to Springfield with stops at Framingham, Worcester, Palmer, and Springfield...then turn north on the Conn River Line making the Vermonter and Valley Flyer stops at Holyoke, Northampton, and Greenfield. It has the advantage of much higher ridership because it would function as a load-bearing Inland Route slot on that much denser service layer cake while serving the already popular CT River Valley stops with beneficial service increases and direct access to Boston. And it would be 2-3 minutes outright faster than the Fitchburg route on the lower-tier investment plan of Class 3 track in addition to all that vastly better ridership. It's only if you do the higher-tier investment plan of Class 4 track on the Fitchburg route that there's any time savings, and they'd be minor. The most fatal flaw of the Fitchburg route is the lack of stop selection. Fitchburg isn't large enough unto itself to be the only intermediate stop...it's only the 6th highest ridership stop on Fitchburg Line commuter rail. You'd need to add at least a 128-situated stop and a 495-situated stop to tap adequate demand from that corridor, but once you do that it doesn't even beat the Z-shaped routing on the higher-tier investment plan. So it's basically a permanently defective routing, and the state is committing malpractice continuing to shovel study resources towards it instead of bootstrapping on COMPASSrail and the Inland Route with an even more flush service plan. Based on the somewhat dire-looking results of the study they should be pivoting at this point to the Z-shape for rail and advancing buses on the Route 2 corridor for Fitchburg connectivity. Politics makes it uncertain that they're actually going to follow Captain Obvious and pivot; they're probably just going to keep pounding at the sunk cost of studying the Fitchburg route because the pols along that corridor have already been tickled by the possibility of free money.

The Northern Tier study already pegged travel demand from that area as more Springfield oriented than Boston, so it should be a no brainer - but Northern Tier, combined with Compass looks really good on a map. That said, In a world with robust East West frequencies, how crucial is the OSR to Boston for that service?

In a full Compass Rail universe, I believe that the plan is for most, if not all, East West trains to be Albany bound, and for similar Amtrak reasons the Valley Flyer is tethered to New Haven. I wonder if the better option for serving N. Adams is actually a "7" shaped routing as an extension of the Valley Flyer aiming for a connection at Springfield, rather than the Z for an East West. As the Valley Flyer is likely to be scheduled to meet the East-West as a matter of course, the transfer (if cross platform) should be minimally invasive.

Such a option could be implemented fairly easily independently of East West, mostly by way of in-progress freight improvements. Since PAS won a $21.6M CRISI grant in Nov 24 for track improvements, plus $4.4M from NY State in Mar 24, there's every chance that the bulk of the PAS main could be class 3 pretty soon. If thats the case, dropping the same prefab interim platforms the T is implementing could represent a low cost startup service. The only major variable there would probably then be the Hoosac. Honestly, regardless of the above, a bus connection to E-W rail at Pittsfield is probably the best option for N. Adams in terms of frequency, demand and travel times - the 413 CRIB thing that MassDOT seems to have pivoted to, running 7 pre-owned intercity coaches. As a basis for an intrastate coach service, not a bad idea.

https://www.recorder.com/Officials-plan-for-bus-stops-in-western-Franklin-County-as-part-of-developing-413-CRIB-program-58733726

 

[Riverside]

I believe the most recent Northern Tier study included intermediate stops west of Fitchburg. (I myself still prefer the Z route, and somewhere on my blog have a more detailed walkthrough.)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Such a option could be implemented fairly easily independently of East West, mostly by way of in-progress freight improvements. Since PAS won a $21.6M CRISI grant in Nov 24 for track improvements, plus $4.4M from NY State in Mar 24, there's every chance that the bulk of the PAS main could be class 3 pretty soon. If thats the case, dropping the same prefab interim platforms the T is implementing could represent a low cost startup service. The only major variable there would probably then be the Hoosac. Honestly, regardless of the above, a bus connection to E-W rail at Pittsfield is probably the best option for N. Adams in terms of frequency, demand and travel times - the 413 CRIB thing that MassDOT seems to have pivoted to, running 7 pre-owned intercity coaches. As a basis for an intrastate coach service, not a bad idea.

The PAS grant was for stabilizing the current Class 2 speeds. Pan Am, despite its post-2008 reinvestment in the Patriot Corridor, still left lots of deferred maintenance to patch. PAS has had to play whack-a-mole with constantly popping-up 10 MPH speed restrictions for years. An uprate to full Class 3 would probably cost close to $100M given the number of track miles that are teetering at barely Class 2. And Berkshire & Eastern really doesn't need need greater than 25 MPH speeds to run a network hubbed centrally at East Deerfield Yard. The more time-sensitive Norfolk Southern intermodal is moving to B&A trackage rights as soon as the Worcester Main's double-stack clearance improvements are completed later this year. Autoracks, trash, and general freight staying on the Patriot Corridor really don't have the same time sensitivity.

I believe the most recent Northern Tier study included intermediate stops west of Fitchburg. (I myself still prefer the Z route, and somewhere on my blog have a more detailed walkthrough.)

Not on the Alternative 1 (lower-investment with Class 3 track) and Alternative 2 (higher investment with Class 4 track) options that got the most attention. It was North Station--Porter Square--Fitchburg--Greenfield--North Adams on both those Alts. Alt. 3 electrified service added 1 more intermediate in Athol. Alt. 4 "local service" took Alt. 2's Class 4 track and added stations at Gardner, Athol, and Shelburne Falls. Alt. 5 took Alt. 2's Class 4 track and did NS--Porter--Fitchburg--Greenfield--North Adams--Schenectady--Albany. And Alt. 6 did a Fitchburg-North Adams shuttle with stops at Fitchburg--Athol--Greenfield--North Adams and forced transfer to Commuter Rail.

All of them fail for not including a near-128 (Waltham Center or Weston/128) and a near-495 (Littleton) intermediate to tap demand on the existing Fitchburg corridor. As per my earlier post, Fitchburg is only 6th on the commuter rail line in boardings after South Acton, Waltham Center, Concord, West Concord, and Littleton. And the 5 Alts. that omit Gardner all end up omitting the highest-population ridership node on the new-service corridor. As a ridership generator this study is defective by design for all that it omits.

 

[Stlin]

The PAS grant was for stabilizing the current Class 2 speeds. Pan Am, despite its post-2008 reinvestment in the Patriot Corridor, still left lots of deferred maintenance to patch. PAS has had to play whack-a-mole with constantly popping-up 10 MPH speed restrictions for years. An uprate to full Class 3 would probably cost close to $100M given the number of track miles that are teetering at barely Class 2. And Berkshire & Eastern really doesn't need need greater than 25 MPH speeds to run a network hubbed centrally at East Deerfield Yard. The more time-sensitive Norfolk Southern intermodal is moving to B&A trackage rights as soon as the Worcester Main's double-stack clearance improvements are completed later this year. Autoracks, trash, and general freight staying on the Patriot Corridor really don't have the same time sensitivity.

Not on the Alternative 1 (lower-investment with Class 3 track) and Alternative 2 (higher investment with Class 4 track) options that got the most attention. It was North Station--Porter Square--Fitchburg--Greenfield--North Adams on both those Alts. Alt. 3 electrified service added 1 more intermediate in Athol. Alt. 4 "local service" took Alt. 2's Class 4 track and added stations at Gardner, Athol, and Shelburne Falls. Alt. 5 took Alt. 2's Class 4 track and did NS--Porter--Fitchburg--Greenfield--North Adams--Schenectady--Albany. And Alt. 6 did a Fitchburg-North Adams shuttle with stops at Fitchburg--Athol--Greenfield--North Adams and forced transfer to Commuter Rail.

All of them fail for not including a near-128 (Waltham Center or Weston/128) and a near-495 (Littleton) intermediate to tap demand on the existing Fitchburg corridor. As per my earlier post, Fitchburg is only 6th on the commuter rail line in boardings after South Acton, Waltham Center, Concord, West Concord, and Littleton. And the 5 Alts. that omit Gardner all end up omitting the highest-population ridership node on the new-service corridor. As a ridership generator this study is defective by design for all that it omits.

That sucks re: the condition of PAS - it may perhaps be a pipe dream then, but still 100M is a fraction of the 900M proposed by Alt 1, and the class 3 segments of the PAS main give me some hope there.

That said, I think I disagree with your point about omitting ridership from stations inbound of Fitchburg as being bad practice - The point of the study was to quantify transit demand for a train to points West of the existing CR territory, and whether investing a billion dollars to accomplish that is justified. If, as you say, you tap existing CR ridership at Littleton, that rider is almost entirely separate from making the investment decision for west of Wachusett. Rather, I see including CR corridor bound figures from CR stops at Littleton & Waltham as tantamount to misinformation - its conflating demand for an express flavor of the existing CR service as part of Northern Tier - that ridership can't really be attributed to investment on the corridor. While there may be some O&D demand at Waltham or Littleton for the Northern Tier locations, unless you delete CR corridor pairing ridership for those stations I personally think that's deceptive on the whole of what we'd get by spending a billion dollars.

Look at the study's estimate of ridership generated at Fitchburg, which in alt 1 of the ~39k projected boardings ~37k are bound for Boston and vice versa. Given 88k total projected ridership, that's 83% of Alt 1's total boardings along the entire Northern Tier corridor that could be captured by improving Fitchburg-Boston running times by 28 minutes. (They used 1:02 against the CR's currently timetabled 1:30). And most of that should be just running express - Alt 1 didn't include infrastructure improvements inbound of Fitchburg. Only 2k of boardings there are outbound, which is non-trivial as far as NT goes, justifying selecting the station - But if, as in this case, you could get 83% of the benefit by running 5 daily express trains from Fitchburg... Similarly, in alt 3, 96.5 percent of Ayer's projected ridership was for Fitchburg and Boston. Inclusion there is justified by electrification investments being extended along the full Boston-N Adams segment, but in my view That makes the case for spending the billion on regional rail, not Northern Tier. That said, generally i agree thst excluding Gardner is odd - it should have featured in more Alts.

I think it'd probably be worth just running the numbers to see if theres O&D demand between say Waltham and Greenfield, excluding existing CR pairings just so you can eliminate it, but to me its a matter of philosophy to attempt to isolate what is new.