AllEarth Rail / Vermont Commuter Rail

Pensyfan19 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:46 am Are they selling off their RDCs? Is this commuter line still proposed? What will they run if they sell off most of their fleet?

AllEarth never said they would run the commuter rail line, they only proposed providing and leasing the RDCs. They left running the commuter rail line to local governments to finance and subsidize. Not one entity in Vermont took up that challenge. AllEarth can not hold on to RDCs worth million of dollars forever. Eventually they will have to lease or sell them to other parties.

There is more to running a commuter rail service than having tracks and trains. It also requires money to subsidize it. No money, no train service. Definitely a missed opportunity for starting a commuter rail service.

CtDOT should buy some of these and run them on their branches. MNRR too.

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 2:11 pm CtDOT should buy some of these and run them on their branches. MNRR too.

NJT too (Boonton Line west of Hackettstown, NYSW service, Freehold/Lakewood, even the High Bridge
Branch since the entire ROW is intact).

https://vermontbiz.com/news/2021/j ... n-vermont
I'm guessing this was unsuccessful.

Last I heard this remained theoretical and had not been actually tried.
The theory of it is pretty cool.

They didn't get the grant so it never went forward.

There's an entire thread dedicated to AllEarth:

https://www.railroad.net/allearth-rail- ... 60261.html

I looked up the metro-area populations in Wikipedia:

• Burlington: 215k
• Montpelier: 8k - 39 mi ESE of Burl
• St. Albans: 7k - 29 mi N of Burl

These towns are so small that it's hard to justify commuter rail. They are not even collinear, meaning a separate route for each.

Existing bus service: Green Mountain Transit -- mostly commute-time, with some midday and Saturday service.

It's simply faster and cheaper to drive between those points anyway...