Montreal - Portland passenger service, past and future

If you've ever ridden the line, you'll know that there aren't too many sections of tangent track between Portland and Island Pond (I don't know about PQ). Perhaps a someone knowledgable in that line and permissible track speeds could comment on possible speeds. You're right, trains 16/17 in the 50s list about about four dozen intermediate stops (some less than a mile apart), BUT: A)Some were flag stops; B) The schedule seems to indicate that only about 1-2 minutes was expended on most of the intermediate stops; and C) It was would unlikely that all intermediate stops would be eliminated, so figure at least 8-10. A reduction in, say, 40 stops, with a 3-minute reduction in transit for each elimination... you've shaved 120 minutes from the old schedule. Down to around 8hr transit.

Why consider the old schedule as a proxy? The Sunday River ski train took 2:30 hrs to run between POR - BETHEL. Guess how long passenger trains took to cover the same route in 1956: 2:20 hrs... with nine intermediate stops!

Onto competitive costs: Auto - operating cost all-in $0.50/mile (includes depreciation, insurance, etc); straight variable cost: $0.25/mile. Add in tolls and you're looking at $140/RT from a variable perspective, and $270 from an all-in. We're close enough on this. Drivers typically consider only variable, i.e., gas and toll costs in making trade-off decisions, so call it $140. Average trip consists of 2.4 people. If two were in the car, the cost would be $70/RT per person. With three in the car, that cost declines to $47/RT per person; with four, to $35.

You want to charge $62 each way, or $124/RT per person. That's great, but will people pay it? Keep in mind that those folks are going to have to pay to get to the station in PQ (taxi or drive+parking) , then expend money renting a car in Maine.

Bonjour. I'm Monsieur Claude Consumer. I live in Chambly, PQ. I'm planning to come to the Maine coast for five days with my wife and two kids. We love the scenery and the people they have curious accents. I'm looking at spending either $140 to drive there, or $372 on the train for the family (assuming you charge 1/2 price for my kids), plus another $150 for a rental car that I booked on Priceline. $140 vs. $522?!?! Sacre bleu! Le train - she is too slow and too many looney for me! We go by Renault!

Cowford,

Although I agree with you that our estimates for automobile travel are very close I would like to better understand your 'straight variable' calculation.

(300 miles at 20 mpg at $2.75/gal. = 15 gal. for $41.25 = $13.75/mile for fuel and 11.25/mile for direct operating expenses also known as 'wear and tear' when assuming $0.25/mile 'straight variable' method) My calculation was effectively $0.3875/mile. Both of our figures are still below the AAA estimates for the cost of driving referred to here: http://www.pacebus.com/sub/vanpool/cost_of_driving.asp, but alas I think your understanding of the tolerance of the family for fares to and from Montreal, and their own cost-benefit methodology is correct.

I am not convinced that large numbers of travellers from PQ would necessarily use rental cars. Portland and OOB are accessible by train, as is the southern coast via the Wells station on the Downeaster with an operating free shuttle. Some of this might depend on what accomodations the travellers were planning to use and how much help their hotel/motel provides in accessing transportation i.e. shuttles to and from the Portland Transportation Center. I'm also not convinced that Grandma or Grandpa Gaston wouldn't be available to drop the family off at the train station thus saving on satellite parking. I think travellers staying for more than a weekend would be more likely to rent a car, in this case travel by train starts to lose appeal very quickly. To a certain extent this was the original dynamic that Grand Trunk found themselves up against.

Still even if we take my initial estimate of $101.53 x 2= $203.06 and exclude added expenses for rentals etc. we are still at $372 for a family of four which I agree with you is probably the target audience. This is a difference of $168.94. To a certain extent this begs the question who is riding the Adirondack and why? We are talking about a very similar distance and yet the train in New York has substantial ridership. Montreal to New York driving is 371 miles or 381 miles by train. The drive time is 6'59'' or almost 7 hrs. exactly. The travel time by train is 11'35'' on the timetable.

It's obvious enough to me that transit within New York is a large part of the ridership, I'm very curious what the actual ridership to and from Montreal is on this train, given that it is working against all of the same disadvantages we are talking about here.

G, I wasn't trying to be dead nuts accurate on car costs. $0.50/mile is approximately the IRS mileage deduction rate; $0.25/mile is actually way on the high side of what a driver would consider as out of pocket costs. (How many people do you know would take the cost of tire wear into consideration in budgeting a 300 mile trip?) It usually comes down to gas and tolls, which as you point out would not likely exceed $0.15/mile.

Looking at the Adirondack (corrected - I originally said Montrealer) is interesting on several counts. Average speed: a paltry 35mph (only 30mph average on the old DH!); ridership in 2008 was 109,000. Of those, it looks like no more than 65k rode between Montreal-NYC (two busloads each way per day, on average). The MTL-NYC one-way coach price is "only" $62, or $0.163/passenger-mile. Air flights are plentiful and look to run ~$350/RT. Buses, Five RTs per day at $134/RT. Consider that this service is provided between Canada and US's biggest metro areas (both with extensive public transport)... and the train can capture only 65K/yr? While I know it's not straight apples and apples, the stats are pretty damning.

There's one other variable to throw in: at the risk of sounding like a retired union member, past practice.
It was past practice for generations of both Franco- and Anglophone residents of Quebec to use the CN and Grand Trunk for the yearly pilgrimage to Old Orchard, just as it was past practice for those folks to use the CN and CPR to go to numbers of other destinations inside or outside the province. That past practice -- tradition -- made possible the customer base for the continuation of summer-only passenger service past what would have been its logical economic limit.
Canada then cut back its passenger rail service for pretty much the same reasons as the U.S. did, with at least one common result. Except for those of us reading this website, now most people don't have in mind railroads as a prime means of vacation transportation.
There has been discussion about cost and the cost-multipliers of family travel. There is one other cost -- perceived, not monetary -- to any sort of non-automotive travel. Unless you can afford to charter, you are subject to the schedule of an entity beyond your control: You have to be at the departure point before the scheduled departure, your needs or wishes to the contrary. Except for the NEC, there is not enough traffic volume to justify the number of trains to provide the scheduling flexibility that most travelers have come to take as a given. If you ever drove to and from Prince Edward Island before the Confederation Bridge opened, you know you had to base your travel plans both on- and off-island around the ferry schedule. Since the bridge opened, there ihas been a new freedom in the ability to travel. People are understandably reluctant to surrender such freedom.
If, with its customer base of skiers and fans, Sunday River didn't survive, it seems highly unlikely that Montreal-Portland passenger service will resurface anywhere but in this or a similar forum.

On a completely frivolous note I wanted to bring up a subject related to this topic that I occasionally consider.

What would a Montreal - Portland train be named?

I took into consideration that NNEPRA's naming of the Downeaster apparently knowingly or not reused an old name for service that ran New York - Halifax in the 1920s and was named the Down Easter.

To date the best answer I came up with was Alouette which was a more recent name for Boston - Montreal service. Given the history I've alluded to in other threads regarding the competitive nature of train service to Montreal between Boston and Portland stealing the name of Boston's old train seemed perfectly appropriate and perhaps even more historical in its own way.

I would further note that given the unnamed generic history of GT/CN Train #16/17 Montreal - Portland - Montreal there is a very rare chance to name a train on a given route for the first time ever.

The cost benefit analysis of this post is deeply in the red. Attempts to convince the author otherwise of the wisdom of discussing such 'frills' will be entertained at a later date as the accounting department is currently in 'PennCentral' mode.

How about Le Express Poutine?

Suddenly I'm hungry...

Umm, yes the cheese had come to mind... .

I had even gone so far as to wonder whether or not the Quebecois would tolerate the cheese spread variety Alouette in the cafe car or if something else with 'authentic' crackers of course would be preferred.

This is a question for the gastronomic experts at NNEPRA to ponder.

Just goes to show what I'm thinking about when not in bean counting mode (ala Cowfordaise ha!)...

ala Mode Limited

**...contemplates almost forgotten 1/2 Applie Pie on kitchen counter.**

In all semi-seriousness I think this is an interesting opportunity to make some railroad history.

or maybe "Esspresso du Fromage!

TheYa can't get there from here...aye?

What about this...
Instead of running a boring Amtrak-style train, why not make it more like the Rocky Mountaineer. Instead of terminating in Portland, they could go somewhere that is more of a coastal resort destination for Canadian tourists. That way, rental cars would be unnecessary. And still, Mainers could board the train in Portland for a weekend away. Unlike Portland, cars are clearly unnecessary in Montreal.

Perhaps the casinos in montreal would be willing to sponsor the train and provide lodging and road transport.

p42thedowneaster wrote:Instead of terminating in Portland, they could go somewhere that is more of a coastal resort destination for Canadian tourists.

Old Orchard Beach would fit that description, and it's historic too -- in the old days, tourists from Quebec would travel to OOB in droves, via the train. Nowadays they travel to OOB in droves, via car. Whether they'd want to do it by train again is anybody's guess. We've already discussed how long the train ride would be, even with good track speeds, and I am still concerned that the trip duration would make it unappealing for a lot of people.

2006 gubernatorial candidate Barbara Merrill proposed running a "casino train" between Portland and Montreal. She wasn't talking about a train that would take you to a casino; she was talking about a train that would actually have a casino onboard... slot machines, card games, craps, roulette, the whole works. Everybody thought it was crazy at the time, but considering how popular casinos are nowadays, maybe it would work. The casino revenue would help to subsidize operation of the train. It would also keep people entertained during that looooong train ride. I'm not a proponent of gambling, not by a long shot, but I think I'd almost rather see a casino train than another bricks-and-mortar casino.

Why does NNEPRA's admission that the Downeaster has failed to draw passengers (read tourists) TO Maine not dampen the enthusiasm of ME-PQ proponents? Most will say southbound traffic is "where the money is." Why would this service be any better in terms of attracting riders? Not to rehash points made earlier about transit time, cost, etc. but I think those issues would magnify the challenge.

gokeefe wrote:I would further note that given the unnamed generic history of GT/CN Train #16/17 Montreal - Portland - Montreal there is a very rare chance to name a train on a given route for the first time ever.

I'm pretty sure that if you go way back-- likely before the creation of CN-- you'd find a named train on this route. After all, before the Grand Trunk became a ward of the Canadian government, it was basically a Portland-Chicago trunk line.

IMHO it's pretty hard to find a stretch of current (or former) main line in New England that wasn't host to a name train at some point in time. Even the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain, I believe, once hosted through Pullmans from Boston to the west, while the Shepaug, Litchfield & Northern's Bethel-Hawleyville branch saw the (ill-fated) Long Island & Eastern States Express.

I believe the proper name for the train was The Gull. Montreal, Portland and Boston.