Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding. I just looked into getting from Montreal to Burlington to take the Ethan Allen Express; there are two buses, one leaves at 8 am and arrives in Burlington at 11 am, too late to catch the EAE, which leaves at 10:17 am. The other bus leaves at 11:30 pm and arrives in Burlington at 2:30 am. The bus station and the train station are about 5 blocks apart (the train tracks are just east of Lake Champlain). I suppose I could get a hotel room for 6-7 hours if I did this.

The alternative is to take the Vermonter from Essex Junction (6.7 miles by road from the Burlington Downtown Transit Center) to Springfield, and connect there to the westbound Lake Shore Limited, where there is a scheduled 51 minute layover (arrives 1435, leaves 1526).

I look at my options and I think I will book a ticket with VIA from Montreal to Toronto and then work my way down to Buffalo from there. I'm disappointed that I will miss out on the Adirondack, but pleased that I learned about the EAE and the actual termination point of the Vermonter.