Planning Division

Rail Section

Vermont Passenger Rail Network

ARRA Stimulus Applications

Downtown VT by Rail

Excursions

The State of Vermont contracts with Amtrak to provide Intercity Passenger services on two routes into Vermont: (See Map)

Amtrak’s Ethan Allen Express originates in Penn Station, New York City and terminates in Rutland Vermont. The State supported portion of the route begins at the Albany/Rensselaer station and includes stops at Schenectady, Saratoga Springs, and Fort Edward, New York and Castleton, and finally Rutland Vermont.

Amtrak’s Vermonter originates in Washington, DC and operates on the Northeast Corridor up to New Haven, Connecticut where it heads north on the Springfield line to Springfield, Massachusetts. North of that point begins the Vermont state supported service that stops at Amherst, Massachusetts, Brattleboro, Bellows Falls Vermont, Claremont New Hampshire, Windsor, White River Junction, Randolph, Montpelier, Waterbury, Essex Junction and terminating in St. Albans, Vermont.

The vision for future passenger rail service in Vermont includes the current service plus the addition of service to communities along the route 7 corridor not presently served. The project to achieve that vision is known as the ABRBE (Albany-Bennington-Rutland-Burlington-Essex Junction) Project. It is anticipated that the communities of North Bennington, Manchester, Middlebury and Burlington would b served by this new service. The first priority is to complete improvements to the rail infrastructure that would allow the extension of the present Ethan Allen Express service up to Burlington. The second phase will include service to those communities south of Rutland.

High Speed Rail: The “Northern New England High Speed Rail Corridor” between Boston, Massachusetts and Montreal, QC passes through Vermont and the Vermont Agency of Transportation has taken the lead in studying the feasibility of the initiation of that service in the future. The Vermont portion of the route currently follows the New England Central RR line from White River Junction, where the proposed corridor enters the State, northwest to Alburg, Vermont where it meets the Canadian National line and proceeds to Montreal, QC . Study continues on a possible alternate route that would connect Springfield, Massachusetts and White River Junction, Vermont along the “Connecticut River Line”.

The “Knowledge Corridor”: This project came out of a grass roots effort to restore passenger rail service to the communities along the Connecticut River line in Massachusetts. This was the route for the Montrealer, the precursor to the current Vermonter. The plan involves moving the current Vermonter service over to the line that serves the larger population cities of Western Massachusetts, Greenfield, Northampton and Holyoke. A study looking at that change as well as a possible extension of planned commuter rail service south of Springfield is now being developed by the Pioneer Valley Regional Planning Commission in cooperation with the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

map of Amtrak lines

Amtrak provides passenger rail service in Vermont with both the Vermonter (Washington, DC to St. Albans, via White River Junction) and the Ethan Allen Express (New York City to Rutland, via Albany, NY. The State of Vermont provides a subsidy to Amtrak to provide this service. See links to the Amtrak lines below.

Amtrak

Vermonter

Ethan Allen Express

Vermont/Amtrak Advertising - Summer 2009. Click on links below to view the actual ads, as aired on TV.

Amtrak Destinations (5.5MB file, approximate download time on 56K modem is 33 minutes.)

Amtrak Green Mountain Travel (5.5MB file, approximate download time on 56K modem is 33 minutes.)