Fowler: Don’t Ask for Billion Dollar High Speed Rail
Carl Fowler is a railroad man. It’s in his blood and a proud part of his family history. He says that expecting billion dollar rail projects in 2018 is going to take too long. That we all should be working hard and advocating for regional rail. Slower railcars, like the self-powered Diesel Rail Cars, might be the answer to how we can become a railroad commuting community.
At the Olver Transportation Center a few days ago, Fowler laid out the history of our rail service, and a possible future. It is clear when he showed a 1948 Boston and Maine timetable for trains out of Greenfield, that they had just about every destination covered! Despite our less crowded route map, today more people than ever are riding railroads.
The Vermonter has seen nearly 900,000 riders, and other routes have also exploded. Just last March I took a train from downtown Denver to the Winter Park Ski Resort, and this new Ski Train is selling out every trip, with more added!
The audience was full and very interested in Carl’s animated discussion of the glory days of passenger rail, and some of today’s most successful routes. One is the Downeaster, that Amtrak runs between Boston and Coastal Maine. It now goes all the way to Brunswick, north of Freeport, and this summer, they’ll extend a trip to Rockland, on a former tourist rail route.
Prowler pointed out a pain point for passenger rail service in Northern New England … the 70 miles of nearly unusable tracks, left unmaintained for decades when the state of New Hampshire didn’t buy the right of way. Plans for high-speed new tracks from Boston to Montreal? It will never happen.
But we do have good news in Western Mass since the number of north-south trains is set to expand to five trains a day. The stated goal is a round trip same day to, NYC from Greenfield.
A private investor in Vermont bought 12 Budd Diesel Rail Cars, the 1950s vintage self-propelled rail cars. Why not use those to increase our own regional rail service? Connecting it with bus service can make it a true alternative to car travel.
Did you know that today you can take two different trains to get deep into Vermont? Not only the Vermonter, but the Ethan Allen Express takes passengers up through New York to Rutland!
But the current trend to plan for high-speed rail has derailed our ability to actually come up with and pay for new rail service. So this is why Fowler advocates using practical trainsets that aren’t hugely expensive and accepting a lower speed trip since it’s better than a high-speed nothing burger.
If you’re interested in rail travel in New England, here are several organizations focused on this goal.
Trains in the Valley is an advocacy group pushing elected officials to fund and encourage rail travel. Their phone is 413-341-0123.
On a national level, the Rail Passengers Association lobbies on a federal level for Amtrak funding.
February 12, 2018 @ 7:21 pm
I was intrigued by Carl Fowler’s mention of rail diesel cars possible use in the area. I would particularly like to see them used to connect Greenfield (or even Shelburne Falls or North Adams) with Wachusett in order to have East-West service from Franklin County. After all, it’s nice to be able to take a one-day trip to New York City, but what about to our own state capital, Boston?
I’d love to know how feasible this is. I expect this means that the line must be equipped with PTC. Does anyone know whether the Pan Am Southern line to Wachusett is equipped with PTC? Does anyone know what it would cost to equip an RDC with PTC equipment that would be compatible with what Pan Am Southern might be using?
February 17, 2018 @ 12:23 pm
My sense is that everyone in this field moves very s l o w l y and they have this idea of using ‘used MBTA trainsets’ which will still cost a huge amount more than the lowly DRCs. But the DRCs are feasible, and the way money comes in and goes out for funding transit, it will take forever to get the money to launch a big new train operation. So smaller is better.