Long day trains between two important endpoints are very unappealing. But night trains have proven their popularity time and time again.
And yes, I do understand that it often is about connecting small communities, but since our rail system is soo slow to begin with, it makes sense to try to have as many night trains as possible.
Another reason why I can't understand why we don't have more sleepers/at least place an order.
Between ordering 100 sleeper cars and financing higher speed tracks, one is cheaper than the other.
Agreed! Hadn't thought of that. There certainly is enough un-utilized space to make it happen.
The other advantage to overnight on this run is that the Boston-Portland and Sherbrooke-Montreal sections are likely to be "daylight" sections in both directions, so you'd pick up a decent slug of traffic on each end. A situation where your average through train has, say, 150 pax going close to end-to-end but you add 100-200 pax on each end isn't utterly implausible as long as the train is "reliable enough".
That being said, the "long daylight run" question really comes down to "how long?" At 14 hours (with nothing major in the middle), I agree this routing would
need to be overnight. A bit lower (or with a significant intermediate destinations) starts changing the picture a bit, especially if the scenery is nice.
One thing I'll lament - it's a pity that the line through Conway/Bretton Woods isn't a viable option, since that line
would probably kick out a good amount of seasonal traffic for a daylight run, and it could still join up with the line through Sherbrooke. I'm guessing that the condition of most of the line is sufficiently bad to make that a non-starter, however.
Agreed.
I see far more potential in a night Montreal - Boston SS/NYP train than this one.
That said, this has been a dream train of mine for quite some time; this proposal, and the reaction to it is garnering far more attention that I think any of us thought it would.
That's basically adding a split to the old Montrealer. I wonder if MA could snag the section of track from Springfield to Worcester (or alternatively, Fitchburg-Greenfield and split in Greenfield) since that would notionally put everything "before" the split northbound under agency control of some sort or another (well, as long as the train doesn't go past...I was gonna say WAS, but you could extend to RVR right now and CLT once a certain segment is done, and still be in state/agency-owned territory). MNRR isn't always a "good host", but if there's some way to get CT to "buy in" you could probably get them to be a "not bad host". Vermont, on the other hand, might buy in to a revived Montrealer-ish timetable that goes down to DC so long as they don't have to pick up
all of the cost...but having a direct train to Boston (versus a messy transfer at Springfield) wouldn't hurt them.
And yes, I think this is by far the "easier" option to put on the table.
