$50-Million Award Will Speed Amtrak

The trip from Randolph to New York City by train will be trimmed by as much as an hour and a half, thanks to federal stimulus funds.

Vermont won two high-speed rail grants totaling $50 million, as part of a high speed rail program announced last week by the Obama administration.

The grants would create 400 jobs, probably boost Amtrak ridership, and will allow the tracks to carry heavier freight, as well.

The project would upgrade rail beds, bridges and tracks along the whole Vermonter rail route that runs from Massachusetts to St. Albans, with several stops in Vermont, including Randolph, White River Junction, and Montpelier Junction.

The opwner of the rail line, New England Central Railroad, will also spend $5 million.

The upgrades would allow trains to travel as fast as 79 miles an hour on the best sections of track; the maximum now is 59. These changes are expected to chop 30 minutes off the route within Vermont.

Perhaps even more important, the upgrades are planned to eliminate a bizarre Amtrak detour in northern Massachusetts that came about because of the track ownership patterns. Amtrak currently goes out of its way 20 miles or so to the west to the town of Palmer and has to back up to Springfield. In the meantime, it bypasses such important destinations as Northhampton and Greenfield altogether.

This time-consuming detour would be eliminated by the upgrade, as 11 miles of new track would be laid.

Currently, Amtrak takes 8.5 hours to travel from Randolph to Penn Station, while a train from Rutland to New York takes just 5.5 hours.

Amtrak as a whole experienced a big increase in ridership during the last couple of years, spurred by the spike in gas prices. Boarders and off-boarders within Vermont hit 82,000 last year.

The track upgrades will allow heavier freight cars as well, up to the 143-ton national standard.