Originally Posted by Reindeerflame
VT and Amtrak were stupid to break this connection in the first place. You want to add that extra market to this train service and carry people to/from Montreal plus the local travel to Vermont. Newark Airport is a good idea as well.
It would be even smarter to offer additional frequencies from Vermont to the Northeast Corridor by adding additional feeder buses from at least White River Junction that connect to trains at Springfield. That's what would be done if this were California.
It was broken, thanks to the horrible departure time from Montreal, something like 4:30 AM to meet the southbound train at St. Albans. Now thanks to a later departure, they are once again restoring the bus connection.
Of course IMHO, they should have never severed the train connection. The retirement of the Montrealer was not a good idea.
What will be interesting to see is, will they keep the bus connection running with the future changes coming to the Vermonter. Before the year is out, and probably before the new timetable is released in the fall, the Vermonter will no longer terminate in St. Albans. It's terminus is slated to be moved to Burlington, VT. That's a move that should increase ridership on this train considerably. Perhaps even to the point where 2 trains each way per day might be justified.