Northern New England Intercity Rail Initiative (NNEIRI)
Public Meeting
Hotel Coolidge
White River Junction, VT
1/22/14 7:00 – 8:45 PM
Scott Bascom, Planning Coordinator with the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) welcomed
attendees. He advised that a presentation will be made on a planning effort to improve intercity rail
service within the New England Region and the public will be asked to provide input on it. Scott
introduced Ron O’Blenis, head of the HDR consultant team that is conducting the study on behalf of
VTrans and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Ron gave a PowerPoint presentation that
described the rail study currently underway. A summary of the presentation is provided below. Public
comments received at the meeting are provided following the presentation summary.
Presentation Summary
The Northern New England Intercity Rail Initiative (NNEIRI) study is a partnership of the Massachusetts
Department of Transportation and the Vermont Agency of Transportation with support from the Federal
Railroad Administration and in collaboration with Connecticut Department of Transportation and the
Ministère des Transports du Québec. The study will examine the potential for operation of more
frequent and higher speed intercity passenger rail service on the Inland Route and the Boston-toMontreal corridors. It will examine ridership potential, necessary incremental infrastructure
improvements and will maximize the use of the existing rail corridor. Specific project outcomes will be a
NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) Tier 1 Environmental Assessment and a Service Development
Plan for the corridor.
The following draft Purpose statement and summary of needs was presented.
Draft Purpose
The purpose of the Northern New England Intercity Rail Initiative is to provide additional regional travel
options through improvements to the level and quality of passenger rail service in the Corridor.
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The Corridor rail services would provide improved passenger rail transportation, connecting
major cities in New England with smaller cities and rural areas and internationally to Montreal,
to help meet future travel demands in the Study Area.
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The Project would create a competitive rail transportation alternative to the available
automobile, bus, and air service by implementing more frequent and higher speed intercity
passenger rail service.
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The study of the Corridor will focus on incremental infrastructure improvement alternatives that
will seek to maximize the use of the existing rail lines along the Corridor.
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Summary of Draft Needs
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Economic Opportunity
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Job Access
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Expanded transit options for Education Centers
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Tourism
Responsive to Population and Demographics
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Changes transportation preferences
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Accommodate existing reliance on public transit
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Meet future increase in travel demand
The total route is 470 miles and can be broken into three segments: Boston to Springfield, 99 miles,
Springfield to Montreal, 309 miles and Springfield to New Haven, 62 miles. Segments of the rail corridor
have six different owners. The owners along the corridor are: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: 44
miles between Boston and Worcester, CSX: 55 Miles between Worcester and Springfield, Pan Am
Southern: 49 miles between Springfield and the MA/VT border, New England Central Railroad: 206 miles
between the MA/VT border and the U.S./Canada border, Canadian National Railroad: 53 miles from the
U.S./Canada border to Montreal and AMTRAK: 62 miles from Springfield to New Haven.
The study will be guided by a stakeholder committee comprised of transportation agencies,
transportation providers, and Regional Planning Agencies/Commissions. The public outreach plan
includes four rounds of public meetings, a project website, newsletters/e-bulletins, publicity through
local media and electronic communication using e-mail alerts. Outreach will specifically identify
potentially affected communities, including minority and low-income populations that will require
targeted outreach. The study will be coordinated with other projects and studies such as the New
Haven – Hartford – Springfield Rail Project, the Vermont State Rail Plan, South Station Expansion and
NEC Future.
The Study will develop a series of alternatives that meet the Purpose and Need. Alternatives will include:
variations of speed, frequency and fares, accommodation for operation and growth of freight,
consistency with current and planned projects, and incorporation of public input. Once developed, the
alternatives will be screened against a set of evaluation criteria.
Corridor considerations that were identified are: existing use of rail corridor for freight and passenger
operations, not considering significant route modifications, environmental considerations such as noise
and vibration, historic resources and natural resources and customs and immigration.
Infrastructure considerations of the study were described. They are: capacity of existing rail corridor,
track improvements of existing rail alignments, and the need for signal installation or upgrades resulting
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from potential speeds in excess of 79 mph. A total 404 grade crossings would be reviewed; crossings
must be grade separated when train speeds exceed 110 mph.
Although a final decision of train stations will be made later in the study, a preliminary list of stations
was developed as follows:
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Massachusetts: Boston (Back Bay and South Station), suburban Boston, Worcester, Palmer,
Springfield, Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield
Vermont: Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, White River Junction, Montpelier, Waterbury, Burlington
(Essex Junction) and St. Albans
Connecticut: Windsor Locks, Windsor, Hartford, Meriden, Wallingford, New Haven (Union
Station)
The presentation concluded with an overview of the study schedule.
Service projections ridership
03/18/14
Preliminary alternatives
09/12/14
Finalize alternatives
10/31/14
Service Development Plans
09/03/15
Complete NEPA process
09/25/15
Public Comments
The following questions or comments (noted in italics) were made by the public, followed by the
response by the project team.
What route to Montreal was being used? It does not seem like the route to Montreal is the most
direct. The route through Springfield MA is less direct but more feasible; it is where there has been
substantial expenditure of federal and state funds as well as private investment.
When you look at ridership, do you factor in other conveniences like having internet on the train? This
allows people to work on the train. That's not a direct factor that goes into the ridership, it is more of a
secondary type of consideration.
What is a tilting train? As you go through a curve the train actually tilts in so that you're not pushed to
the outside. This allows trains to go faster through a curve and maintain passenger comfort.
What about dual power locomotives so the New Haven interchange may be eliminated? This type of
train is now used between Albany and New York. There's some new equipment being developed for
dual mode but we're not going to be looking at the details of that in this study.
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Do you use demographic information to select station locations? Palmer and Holyoke don't strike me
as very promising markets for intercity travel. The people in those towns don't have discretionary
income to go anywhere, let alone on the train. We use demographic information to help us focus
where would we site stations that would have a good capture rate, where we have populations near the
stations that would not have too far to drive. We're using this data to help finalize or select those station
locations that we're going to put into our model and ridership forecast.
It can take two days to go between Boston and St. Albans as there's no connection in Springfield
without staying to get from Boston to White River Junction. You're not considering the connectivity of
the Vermonter with other trains in the Amtrak system which on a personal level is very severe for me
because I have to travel to Albany if I want to go west. The point of the study is to consider how
connections can work better, where the transfers should occur so services match up better.
The other thing that would be nice is if the trains ran on time. Of the 21 days in January, the
Vermonter has been late from St. Albans all but three days and the train was more than five minutes
late. When I was in college the trains ran on time, you could almost set your watch by them. The
Vermonter was consistently on time until the change in ownership.
Where are you garnering your information for potential ridership? Claremont is on your route but
you're not stopping there. Yet Claremont has a local factory plant that is a Quebec-owned company
whose management is involved with the day-to-day operations of the Claremont plant. It seems to
me that that's a potential user. The city of Claremont has a sizable French Canadian population,
mostly older people like me. So as we age the idea of rail travel to Quebec would be advantageous
because we regularly go there. We are having these public meeting so we can learn more about
ridership and incorporate the information we get into our study.
There have been a ton of cool rail proposals but none is half as exciting as the idea of just being able
to get to Montreal in a day's time. What I would propose you guys do is first connect the train to
Montreal and then fix all the other stuff. It just takes getting customs cleared through Montreal
stations. This is Montreal, Canada. We're been allied with them for 200 years or so. It's not Syria.
We're working with a lot of TSA agencies and complementary agencies in Canada and Quebec. Spending
US security funds in a foreign country is a really hard thing to do, even just getting the design done.
Amtrak, I believe, is preparing the design for the architectural design and engineering in the station.
New York wants it. Vermont wants it. It is complicated. The current situations are not easy. But I
believe we've heard that it's not that far off now. They've gone a long way and solved a lot of the
problems and they're moving towards actually making that happen.
You mentioned that there's this competition between air and rail. These are both federally funded
systems. We’re paying for both the then. It's your money whether it's air or it's rail. Why aren't these
trains run right smack through the airports?
Is there a timetable on extending shuttles north of Springfield to White River Junction? That would
solve most of our problems up here in terms of connectivity in the south and west. There's actually a
discussion about that but expanded service is not imminent.
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Only by increasing frequency can we justify investments in rail. In every example in the United States
increased frequency has paid off in staggering increases in patronage, whether it is the Downeaster or
most dramatically, Sacramento to Oakland where there was one train three days a week when
Amtrak started and now it's 15 a day. It's frequency that brings patronage.
One of the things we also don't want to forget is the benefit of this [rail] spending that has done for
the existing rail freight network. That's been very important to allowing more weight on the cars
coming through and that’s part of what we're doing here with all this money we're spending. It's not
just for the passenger component. It's also a great benefit to the freight side and the only way we can
keep them going is if we give them a viable freight business. We don't want to forget that.
You mentioned in one of your slides that alternatives will be evaluated against objective criteria in the
Purpose and Need statement which I think is great. Why then have the station locations been
predetermined? I'm assuming the station locations haven't undergone that objective analysis against
the Purpose and Need Statement. Greenfield, I think, has been added since the stakeholder meeting.
Are these decisions happening based on politics or are they happening based on an objective analysis
against what's in the Purpose and Need Statement? The list of stations is based on a preliminary
screening of where we think the demographics suggest there would be high usage. We're trying not to
have a station every ten miles so we can have a reasonable level of speed and trip time. We had to start
somewhere to build our ridership model. It is not necessarily the final list.
Will there be an objective analysis based on demographics, based on the things that are in the
Purpose and Need Statement so that stations like Claremont are objectively evaluated against the
other stations on that list? Yes. We're not here to get into the particulars of station locations. That’s
something that we will vet with our stakeholders group, state agencies, the rail operators and the
regional planning commissions.
If the purpose is to develop high speed - to get from Boston to Montreal – then it makes sense to make
four or five stops. If the idea is to really develop a real network that really gets a lot of use, there are
a lot of us who live along the track who fantasize about the day we are able to pop on just to go to
Brattleboro or to go to Montreal for the day, then you're really looking at a system. We will have to
balance the need to stop at every station against the need to have a reasonable travel time for the
overall service. There was a study done back in 2003 that looked at a route that came up from Boston
and went through New Hampshire to Montreal. We found the largest ridership was not to the ends –
Boston to Montreal – but between stations within the corridor. So one of the things we're really looking
at in this study is where is the desire to move within the corridor, not simply from one ends to another
but from middle midpoint station to one of the ends.
I'd like to respond to the Purpose and the Need. You didn't seem to get the substance of the comment
about the quality of the time that you spend on the train. Every one of those hours on the train is
productive. That's economic opportunity. We're not just trying to meet the time constraints of going
by air. We're trying to make the travel quality time. We will attempt to give some consideration for
those secondary inducements.
How many are you planning on running a day and when? How can you begin to estimate ridership if
you have no idea how many you're going to be running? Once we set the ridership model up, it's very
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easy to change inputs (change the service, take a stop out, increase a fare, decrease a fare). All those
factors are built in the models so it's very flexible to evaluate them.
Are you thinking about commuter service? No. There are not enough commuters but frequency of
operations of intercity service can support commuter populations. The Downeaster is a good example.
If people don't have comments tonight on the Purpose and Need or if they think of something two
days from now is there a deadline for written comments? We would like to hear from you by the end of
February.
The necessity of making connections is important for the Purpose and Need. Every time I find myself
wanting to go west from Randolph, Vermont to Chicago and west is to drive through Saratoga or to
Albany because I can't make a same day connection. In relation to the Purpose and Need you seem to
be saying what you would want to have some consideration of not only regional connections but those
regional connections consider beyond the region.
The Purpose and Need is to provide for passenger rail, but financial viability of freight is critical and it
should mention freight because the condition of the freight system affects how reliable the passenger
system is. We thought about including freight but we are leaning towards not including it. Freight will
benefit from most all alternatives and freight service will be preserved. We think the focus needs to be
passenger service because if we include freight in the Purpose and Need, we might end up screening out
good passenger alternatives that don't greatly benefit freight. Does this make sense? [The speaker
responded affirmatively].
I do think it would be a mistake not to give the stop at Claremont the fullest consideration possible,
and bear in mind that that's not just Claremont but includes a catchment area consisting of Springfield
and Windsor, Vermont. Between those three places you've probably got a base population of about 35
to 40,000. Another consideration is ethnic composition and business connection to Canada.
Somebody early on alluded that the route that you're proposing is not all that direct…it's like you're
proposing to keep the two legs of the triangle and cutting out the hypotenuse. Why aren't you
proposing the route to go through New Hampshire which would also include a connection through
Lawrence or Lowell plus Manchester? It's possible to connect with the Manchester airport. The old
railroad right-of-way actually goes right on the other side of the main runway within the airport
property. The route through New Hampshire was studied in 2003 and found that there would be good
ridership between cities along the route. The study did not progress into further study of rail
infrastructure and operational issues because the State of New Hampshire did not believe it had funds
for rail investment. New Hampshire owned the right of way between Concord and Lebanon but there
was no track and no freight to help support that line.
Shelley Winters from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation said in 2003 developing rail
service was not palatable because over 60 miles of track no longer existed. Currently her department is
focusing on investment on the Capitol Corridor between Lowell and Nashua to Manchester and possibly
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to Concord. Shelley has asked to have Claremont on the list of stations if screening indicates it makes
sense. In the short term, there will not be rail service between Concord and Lebanon.
What type of travel surveys are you planning to take? We are planning more of a higher level, broad
brush approach that does not include detailed ridership surveys at this time. We will, however, utilize
Amtrak’s ridership survey information.
You need to be really careful about the data you use because the existing northeast corridor models
are based on movements between major cities, and we're talking about a rural corridor or some rural
corridors. That's a great point. We will use our judgment to adjust it.
Bill Hollister of AMTRAK commended everyone that provided input during the meeting and said he
appreciated their passion for rail. He cited a recent law that went into effect on October 1, Section 209
of the Passenger Rail Reinvestment Act of 2008. This law states that rail operations for service less than
750 miles needs to be funded by the states so train frequency will depend on what states want to
fund. Bill also confirmed that AMTRAK ridership models are available for both heavily densely
populated corridors and more rural.
Are there any federal funds in this study or in its implementation? Both MA and VT received Federal
Rail Administration funds to fund this planning study. We are not in an implementation phase.
I am a frequent long distance train user. There are three things that be done to improve my
trip: better connectivity, checked baggage to major stations, and an arrangement with rental car
company at the stations.
The meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.
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