ST. ALBANS, Vt. — An Amtrak inspection trip ran today from St. Albans to Montreal over the normally freight only Swanton Subdivision of both New England Central and Canadian National. Montrealer service ended in 1995 and more than two dozen rail and government officials were aboard the consist of Amtrak P42 101, Amcafe 43371 and American View, the Viewliner theater inspection car. Stops were made enroute to inspect various structures and track for upgrading to restore Amtrak Montrealer.
Major waypoints on the route included:
St. Albans
Alburgh Trestle
Alburgh Springs
Lacolle, Quebec
Cantic, Q.C.
and Montreal
The Amtrak Montrealer Inspection Train crosses the Richelieu River just before stopping for a ground-level inspection of the bridge. The train ran as Amtrak 881/CN P69921-18 as it headed for Montreal from St. Albans, Vt., on July 18.
Kevin Burkholder
Ignoring the political roadblocks, I’d love to be able to take a decent train with my family from NYC Penn to Montreal – on a decent route, and just as important, with proper food options. It’s a long ride to not have decent food aboard. An overnight choice would be good too. Only problem; we’d have to take the LIRR into Penn, probably at off hours, and we’d probably have to board a LIRR train several hours ahead to be sure to make it to Penn on time. Big reasons we didn’t go by Amtrak on our not too long ago trip to Montreal. Imagine; to be sure to make that early morning departure, we’d probably need to get to Manhattan the night before.
@Dennis Jeffries: Right on the lack of money!
I guess restoring the Montrealer would not be a bad idea; I rode on it a few times when I lived in Montreal. But it is a slow and circuitous route compared to the route from Montreal to New York through Albany. Putting a second (overnight) train on that route would be a lot more sensible. Even better would be to restore an overnight train between Toronto and Chicago, which would connect with the various Amtrak trains that connect Chicago with California, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. And what about Montreal to Boston? The distance between those two cities is about the same as the distance between Montreal and Toronto, but there has been no passenger train connecting them since 1965! Even if it went by way of Portland (Maine) the distance would be less than 400 miles, which is often considered the ideal length for a passenger train route: too short to be worth the hassle of flying but too long to be an easy drive, especially in winter.
It is discouraging to continue reading stories of these inspection trains, knowing there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell of anything actually happening given the current political climates at the state and federal level…sigh!
Even more frustrating – how come Customs & Immigration appears to not be a problem for AMTRAK/VIA at the NY border crossings, but continues to keep the Blue Water from once again becoming the International between Chicago & Canada via Port Huron !!!!