Posts Tagged ‘Holyoke’

Amtrack

By MARY CAREY
AMHERST – A Pioneer Valley Planning Commission proposal that would eliminate an Amtrak Vermonter stop in Amherst is moving full steam ahead, but Amherst officials are not all aboard.

“We have a constituency that is very well suited for train travel, and we have a demonstrated performance record,” Town Manager Larry Shaffer said Friday. “The notion that somehow we’re going to dismantle that to try to create ridership in another corridor, we think doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

About 1,000 passengers a month for a total of 12,679 in 2008 got on or off the Vermonter in Amherst, headed for Washington or points north. It’s by far the busiest stop along the route in western Massachusetts with the exception of Springfield, said PVPC planner Dana Roscoe. The train also stops in New York City.

But by rerouting a leg between Palmer and Springfield and eliminating a stop in Amherst, while adding stops in Northampton, Greenfield and Holyoke, Amtrak could reduce travel time and save the Vermonter, Roscoe said. The Green Mountain State subsidizes the aptly named Vermonter 100 percent – Massachusetts contributes nothing, Roscoe said. “Vermont is saying if we can’t improve the service, we might have to discontinue it.”

“That’s a bummer to hear that,” said Al Wilbur, an Amherst Railway Society member who owns a bed-and-breakfast on Route 9 in Amherst and had just gotten back from a train trip to Washington. “A number of guests do come by train, and it’s convenient for me to be able to say I could pick them up. I would hate to see it go. It’s so cool to go down to a station where trains actually stop in town.”

Train enthusiasts particularly like the part of the journey between Palmer and Amherst, where the track is older and makes a clickety-clack sound when the train runs over it. “That’s all part of it,” Wilbur said.

“That station is vital to the town, especially our student population, and we must advocate strenuously to save it,” said Stephanie O’Keeffe, chairwoman of the Select Board.

“We need more options for train service, not fewer, so to eliminate the Palmer detour and Amherst’s station would be going in the wrong direction.”

O’Keeffe questioned the wisdom of targeting the second busiest station in western Massachusetts. “Why would you close that? And how would you accommodate all those travelers?”

“Amherst is where the most likely users come from and go to,” said former Select Board member Robert Kusner. He has been agitating for high-speed rail service to Boston for some time.

Roscoe said the 12,679 people who are getting on or off the train in Amherst now don’t all come from Amherst. Nor is it their final destination. It’s just the most convenient place for people within a certain radius now, Roscoe said.

“I don’t really see that Amherst is losing anything,” he said. “People in Amherst could very easily jump on a PVTA bus and be in Northampton in 20 minutes at no cost.”

But the town manager isn’t buying it.

“From my perspective, we want to be positive about this,” Shaffer said. “We don’t want to prevent anybody from getting a benefit that they think makes sense for their communities, but we don’t want that benefit to be at the expense of the town of Amherst.”

Shaffer wants to know when “Amherst will be brought into the conversation,” he said.

“We want to be at the table when our fate is being discussed. People are discussing closing our Amtrak station, and we haven’t been consulted on it.”

written by  Mary Carey

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.

History of the Montrealer

The Montrealer was originally a service of the Boston and Maine Railroad (BM), running between Montreal and Washington. The southbound line from 1972-1974 was called the Washingtonian, and the northbound was called the Montrealer. The Washingtonian was also Train 185, which came from New York and later along with most other regular trains on the Northeast Corridor, folded into one NortheastDirect in 1995. The Ambassador ran the same route but terminated in New York. Both services used the Boston and Maine’s Connecticut River Railroad south of Vernon, Vermont, rather than the current route over the New England Central.

Amtrak’s Montrealer acquired a reputation as a party train due to the large numbers of skiers who would take the train, staying up late into the night or not sleeping at all. Amtrak equipped the train with its own dedicated lounge car outfitted with a piano, dubbed the LePub.

The Montrealer was suspended from early April 1987 to mid-July 1989, because of deteriorating track conditions on the Boston and Maine Railroad, which had been taken over by Guilford Transportation. During the suspension, Amtrak offered “Ambus” service (operated by Vermont Transit) to Springfield, Mass., where passengers would board an Amtrak train for points south to Washington. This situation precipitated the only instance of Amtrak seizing another railroad by eminent domain, followed by the re-sale of the track by Amtrak to the Central Vermont. Led by Jim Jeffords, Vermont’s congressional delegation secured federal funds to rebuild the track. Only the section between Windsor, Vermont and Brattleboro, Vermont was transferred, however, leaving the line between Springfield, Massachusetts and East Northfield, Massachusetts as an obstacle. The train was reinstated in July 1989, this time taking the long way over the Central Vermont Railway (CV) from East Northfield to New London, Connecticut, rather than traveling over the direct Guilford Rail System (formerly BM) track.

In 1989, when the train returned to service, the stop in Northampton, Massachusetts was discontinued, although the replacement daytime “Ambus” service via Vermont Transit continued running, and a new stop in Amherst, Massachusetts, was added. The crew change was shifted from Springfield to Palmer at the same time. In 1992 a stop was added at Willimantic, Connecticut, but service there was discontinued in 1995 upon inception of the Vermonter.