Amtrak Vermonter / Montrealer

asull85 wrote:There is a severe manpower shortage in the Northeast. Not to mention crews have started qualifying on the Conn River.

A few questions about the act of qualifying (Amtrak crews) on the Conn River Line --
Are all Amtrak engineers and conductors who work out of Springfield qualified to work the Vermonter between Springfield and St Albans?
Is it the plan to have everyone (who works out of SPG) qualified on the Conn River line?
When Amtrak makes qualifying runs up to East Northfield and back is it necessary for Pan Am to provide pilots?
Have these runs started yet?

Also, I recall reading once that the engineer on the Vermonter works SAB to Brattleboro and then another engineer works BRA to SPG and then SPG back to BRA. Then the original engineer, who worked the southbound run takes the train from BRA back to SAB. If this is what is done today, will this be the operation when the Vermonter moves over to the Conn River Line?

BenH wrote: A few questions about the act of qualifying (Amtrak crews) on the Conn River Line --
Are all Amtrak engineers and conductors who work out of Springfield qualified to work the Vermonter between Springfield and St Albans?
Is it the plan to have everyone (who works out of SPG) qualified on the Conn River line?
When Amtrak makes qualifying runs up to East Northfield and back is it necessary for Pan Am to provide pilots?
Have these runs started yet?

Also, I recall reading once that the engineer on the Vermonter works SAB to Brattleboro and then another engineer works BRA to SPG and then SPG back to BRA. Then the original engineer, who worked the southbound run takes the train from BRA back to SAB. If this is what is done today, will this be the operation when the Vermonter moves over to the Conn River Line?

There are two work zones in Springfield, Zone 1 and Zone 3. The Zone 1 crews work South and Zone 3 crews work North. Only a handful of conductors working SPG Zone 1 are qualified to work the Vermonter to St. Albans. Only two of the SPG Zone 1 engineers are qualified to go north and I think they can only goto Brattleboro.

SPG Zone 3 conductors and BRA engineers are being qualified first. Once they are qualified, the Zone 1 conductor and engineer spareboards will be qualified, followed by anyone else in SPG who wants to. I know of 3-4 who said they'll go up and qualify.

Right now all qualifying has been done by high rail vehicle with a Pan Am track foreman piloting. They plan on running the protect shuttle up within the next few weeks once more crews are qualified. They've been making regular qualifying runs since late October.

The engineer runs right now are BRA-SAB, goto the hotel for the night. The next morning they run back to BRA and the turn job takes the southbound to SPG and brings the northbound back. Then a new engineer will run the northbound the rest of the way to SAB. For now there will still be a BRA-SPG-BRA turn but there are talks of abolishing the Brattleboro crew base and moving it to SPG. If/when that happens, obviously the turn job will go away. I think this will bring back the 2nd engineer jobs to run the train from SPG-SAB.

Update on Thanksgiving Week Sellouts as of 8:30PM Monday 1/24

Southbound:
Sold out Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday.

Northbound:
Sold out Tuesday, Saturday.
3 seats left on Wednesday
1 seat left on Sunday

Reminder that Amtrak does a reservation "sweep" around 2AM nightly
that could open up a few seats.

asull85 wrote:Right now all qualifying has been done by high rail vehicle with a Pan Am track foreman piloting. They plan on running the protect shuttle up within the next few weeks once more crews are qualified. They've been making regular qualifying runs since late October.

Thank you for all of the interesting info.

The authorities in Greenfield apparently are warning people that Amtrak, "has begun sending test trains through the city that operate at significantly higher speeds than what residents are used to." I guess they are just trying to put people on notice now that higher speed trains are on the way.

Here's the link to the story:
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/ ... ts_be.html

Dick H wrote:Update on Thanksgiving Week Sellouts as of 8:30PM Monday 1/24

Southbound:
Sold out Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday.

Northbound:
Sold out Tuesday, Saturday.
3 seats left on Wednesday
1 seat left on Sunday

Reminder that Amtrak does a reservation "sweep" around 2AM nightly
that could open up a few seats.

Normally I would suggest Amtrak play with the pricing SPG to NHV on the Vermonter but theirs a problem... Every shuttle is just about sold out SPG-NHV! too bad SLE sets don't use the line yet. Sellout = ridership to bus = Numbers of travelers by train cannot increase.

theozno wrote:Normally I would suggest Amtrak play with the pricing SPG to NHV on the Vermonter but theirs a problem... Every shuttle is just about sold out SPG-NHV! too bad SLE sets don't use the line yet. Sellout = ridership to bus = Numbers of travelers by train cannot increase.

Future ridership growth is not dependent on the 10 busy holidays and peak times that sell out. Please don't sweat the sellouts. Future ridership growth is about filling the seats on the 355 regular days of the year and the 14 non-peak hours of the 20-hour operating day (5am to 1am). Thanksgiving sellouts are essentially baked in, unavoidable, un-correctable (until capacity grows with the new HSR trainsets) and therefore managerially and economically irrelevant.

I would note that in the middle of all this Vermont Public Radio "VPR" reports that the Vermonter has had 20 straight months of ridership gains.

Ridership on Amtrak’s Vermonter is at its highest level ever.

Vermont rail officials say track improvements have cut travel time to New York, which has helped attract riders. There are also plans to restore service to Montreal.


According to Dan Delabruere, rail program director for the Agency of Transportation, Vermonter ridership has been on the rise for the past 20 months, since work was completed that shortened the trip to New York by about 30 minutes. He says the work, coupled with marketing efforts accounts for the increase.

During the 12 month period ending September 30, 83,351 riders took the Vermonter, a 6.6 percent increase from the year before.

There were 49,137 riders on the Ethan Allen Express, which travels up the western side of Vermont, a 0.9 percent decline from the previous year.

There is also a building head of positive press in Vermont regarding the switch back to the Conn River Line.

From "The Commons" of Windham County, Vermont.

BRATTLEBORO—It has been a long time in coming, but starting Dec. 29, Amtrak’s Vermonter passenger train will stop detouring through Amherst and Palmer, Mass., and instead will speed down the Connecticut River rail corridor on its way to Springfield, Mass.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the new owner of the railroad tracks between East Northfield and Springfield, says that passenger service between Brattleboro and Springfield will return to its traditional route on that date, and that the Vermonter will begin making stops in Greenfield, Northampton, and Holyoke on the way to Springfield.
After $73 million of federal stimulus money, the 49-mile Connecticut River line — also known as the Knowledge Corridor — has been rebuilt using continuously welded rail to allow trains to travel at speeds up to 75 mph, and cut travel time between Vermont and New York by about 25 minutes.

It is worth remembering that every single rider coming from Vermont will get the full benefit of the expected 25 minute schedule improvement.

So how much faster has the trip gotten (and will it get) over time from, say, White River Junction to NYP? Because everybody likes to talk nominal minutes saved, I can't get a sense of relative (percent... Or Versus "the whole trip") trip times for "most Passengers" in the various eras:
- at the launch of Amtrak service
- at the old CT River's worst
- at the switch to Palmer-Amherst
- after improvements in VT
- Dec 30 204, after CT River restored

Just looking at White River Jct - Springfield 123 miles via NECR/PAS or 133 via NECR/CSX

B&M days average about 150 minutes - Montrealer a little faster than the Vermonter - both trains used B&M NB only East Northfield to Brattleboro.

Montrealer/Washingtonian up through early 1980s about the same as B&M times.

B&M bad track days about 210 minutes on a good day. On a bad day it was quicker to walk.

The rerouted (1987-1995) Montrealer didn't hit Springfield , but WRJ - NHV was about 45 minutes longer than the schedule for the Springfield route.

Current Vermonter schedule allows 205 minutes, down from about 235 before the schedule change in 2013.

Of the current schedule 136 minutes are allowed Brattleboro - Springfield.

B&M allowed 14 minutes from Brattleboro to East Northfield, a little over 9 miles, with a track speed limit of 49. NECR allows 59, but there are a couple of curve restrictions. I find it hard to believe that the schedule would be much longer than 75 minutes from Brattleboro to Springfield even with the backup move into the station, making about an hour savings over the current arrangement. This is pretty much what we were promised even when the original proposal was made, which would have left part of the Conn River unsignalled with a 59 MPH speed limit.

Going back a few threads to the Boston to Montreal Amtrak service discussion. The best route to follow would be via the old B&M Northern Line through New Hampshire. This was by far the best and most direct line via Nashua, Manchester and Concord joining the NECR at White River Jct. However, with that line largely physically gone north of Concord leaves only a few reasonable options for the service: B&A to Palmer and north on the NECR, the B&A to Springfield and north on the Conn River line to the NECR or the Downeaster Route to Portland then on to the SLR. Because the Northern is unavailable for use, mileage becomes the big issue via any of the three routes, so it would be in the train's best interest to run it on the line that provides the train with the shortest route miles overall and to use existing lines that are already hosting Amtrak trains. That leaves the NECR line to Palmer then north. This line is attractive in that it goes through Amherst where there are 30,000 plus students that could easily take advantage of this service, and more importantly, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could look to drive towards a new "Downeaster" style train service between Amherst and Boston with a few trains each way. The NECR between Palmer and East Northfield, while is not great, it is not shot either where a huge influx of money would be needed to bring it to passenger train standards similar to the Conn River line did over the past few years. If welded rail were installed even on the worst sections of the Palmer to East Northfield line added with new ties and surfacing would allow the train to run at 59MPH and if CTC were added, then some sections could run faster. Hopefully, NECR can make an effort to keep this portion of the line in good operating condition even after the Vermonter leaves for the Conn River all while looking ahead to the possibility of introducing some new passenger trains to the line.

In my previous post I referred to the Vermonter on the B&M - of course I meant the Ambassador.

The NECR Palmer sub is 55 miles from Palmer to Brattleboro. The Conn River line is 60.5 miles from Springfield to Brattleboro. CSX's Boston line is about 17 miles from Palmer to Springfield.
The only town of any size on the Palmer Sub is Amherst, whereas the Conn River gets Springfield, Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield. PVTA buses take about 15-20 minutes to get from U Mass to Northampton. The Amherst Amtrak station is a couple of awkward miles from the U Mass campus.
The Palmer sub is also riddled with speed restrictions. I don't have a current ETT, but my 1978 CV timetable lists a speed limit of 40 (I think it's 50 now) with one 10MPH and several 25 MPH speed restrictions, including one of 10.5 miles. Anyone who has ridden the Vermonter is well aware of the curving slog through north central Massachusetts. While it would be fairly easy to post a 60MPH end-to end schedule on the CSX/Conn River route, the "direct" NECR route ends up with an average speed of less than 40. The extra 11 miles are more than compensated for by faster speed and a better market.

Allouette wrote:Just looking at White River Jct - Springfield 123 miles via NECR/PAS or 133 via NECR/CSX

B&M days average about 150 minutes - Montrealer a little faster than the Vermonter - both trains used B&M NB only East Northfield to Brattleboro.

Montrealer/Washingtonian up through early 1980s about the same as B&M times.

B&M bad track days about 210 minutes on a good day. On a bad day it was quicker to walk.

The rerouted (1987-1995) Montrealer didn't hit Springfield , but WRJ - NHV was about 45 minutes longer than the schedule for the Springfield route.

Current Vermonter schedule allows 205 minutes, down from about 235 before the schedule change in 2013.

Of the current schedule 136 minutes are allowed Brattleboro - Springfield.

B&M allowed 14 minutes from Brattleboro to East Northfield, a little over 9 miles, with a track speed limit of 49. NECR allows 59, but there are a couple of curve restrictions. I find it hard to believe that the schedule would be much longer than 75 minutes from Brattleboro to Springfield even with the backup move into the station, making about an hour savings over the current arrangement. This is pretty much what we were promised even when the original proposal was made, which would have left part of the Conn River unsignalled with a 59 MPH speed limit.

Continuing on your nice piece of analysis...

Appendix B of the 2014 Operating Agreement between MassDOT, the MBTA and Pan Am it (linked on this board few weeks ago) says that the "Public Scheduled Amtrak Train Maximum Average Trip Time between CPR 1 and East Nortfield"(*) at the completion of the project should be 71 minutes.

(*) "Shown as an average scheduled running time of the southbound and northbound trains. The Public Scheduled Amtrak Train Maximum Average Trip Time assumes a preliminary Pure Running Time (''PRT") of 61 minutes, and 2 minutes of station dwell time at each of Greenfield and Northampton."

So the target scheduled time between Springfield and Brattelboro looks like it might be about 87 minutes, calculated as follows:
61 minutes (pure running time CPR 1 - East Northfield)
14 minutes (East Northfield - Bratlelboro))
6 minutes (station dwell time - 2 minutes per station x 3 stations)
6 minutes (move between SPG and CPR 1)

which would be a reduction of 49 minutes vs. the current schedule for the Vermonter.

Keep in mind that the "71 minutes" number is the target for the completion of the project in about 2 years.

BenH wrote:Appendix B of the 2014 Operating Agreement between MassDOT, the MBTA and Pan Am it (linked on this board few weeks ago) says that the "Public Scheduled Amtrak Train Maximum Average Trip Time between CPR 1 and East Nortfield"(*) at the completion of the project should be 71 minutes.

Would you be able to provide a link to the Operating Agreement please. Thank you.

I just saw both North and South bound Vermonters go through Windsor CT 11/26/14 today. North Bound as well as South bound were running a little late. Cab Control cars leading both ways even in the snow. No extra cars added though this year on either one which is sad as I read they were basically sold out and could have used another car from what I hear. Years past they did have an extra car on. South bound shuttle followed an hour or so later (5:05pm Windsor), also no extra car added on like in the past.