Amtrak suspends Vermont lines

Southbound Vermonter departed St. Albans this morning. NECR had washout repaired by Saturday. Heavy rains in same region over the weekend don't seem to have caused additional damage to the railroad, though they have caused damage elsewhere.

There were some washouts down in MA, but not to the level of the one near Putney. Quick fixes, if they were able to follow 323 north yesterday.

The washouts in MA were on the NECR line south of where the Vermonter switches over to Pan Am territory.

The Vermonter was about 54 minutes late into Brattleboro and lost another 8 minutes or so detraining a rough guess of at least 150 passengers, who took advantage of a $1.00 fare from Bellows Falls. There was close to 100 visitiors on hand at the station to greet the passengers, including a band. Thanks to the VAOT, Amtrak and the local greeters for marking the return of Amtrak service in style.

With all the rain have to wonder if any more rock slides . Remember that happened in the past when the Vermonter ran into a rock slide.

REJOICE!!!
article in the brattleboro reformer 7/20/2016:
https://www.reformer.com/local-news/bra ... 6ca20.html

here's an article in vtdigger 7/19/2019:
https://vtdigger.org/2021/07/19/amtrak- ... c-absence/

Sure gotta say, with more passenger train-miles PER CAPITA - and all locally funded - Vermont need to "put on the happy face" regarding the services' return.

That picture of the Dummerston washout, wow! How much does it cost to repair something like that? How do you quickly engineer a solution that won't wash out again?

Considering the media event the return of these Vermont trains has become, couldn't Amtrak have ensured they were assigned equipment that had a good scrubbing?

There was a photo today in The Journal of the one which serves Berlin VT arriving. The cars looked filthy, to say the least.

If that not enough, there were TV clips of the Brattleboro train that "also forgot to shower".

Thanks to IMR Films, here is a 3:21 video of the Brattleboro event, with drone and grown level footage included.

Sort of amazing that on the day the service came back that both trains were over two hours late arriving at their terminal destination.

https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2021/07/19/55

https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2021/07/19/56

To be fair, no one was using the trains for serious transportation on Monday - it was really a "pre-service" inaugural run. By contrast Tuesday's Vermonter was running about 10 minutes late at White River Junction.

Considering that Amtrak service is officially restored to Vermont, shouldn't this topic be renamed to something else? (Such as the one which I wrote here)

Or, Mr. Pennsy, to cover all aspects of this topic:

"Amtrak COVID Suspension and Restoration of Vermont Services"