Proposed Equipment Change and Service Upgrade
Amtrak had urged the state of Vermont to purchase diesel multiple unit (DMU) trainsets for use on the New Haven–St. Albans stretch of the line. These DMUs would have been a smaller and more efficient alternative to the current locomotive-pulled configuration. Instead of remaining in the same passenger coaches while the crew switched locomotives at New Haven, passengers would have had to change trains. Amtrak offered a $2 million grant to help make the switch and market the new service. The new cars would purportedly have saved $4.25 million over three years, being four times more fuel efficient than a locomotive-hauled train. In 2008 the Vermont state legislature approved the purchase of five cars from Colorado Railcar at the cost of $18.2 million, but the decision was pending the approval of Governor Jim Douglas when the company closed, and with no other manufacturers of DMUs that comply with US regulations for DMUs, the plan has since been dropped.
Amtrak and the State of Vermont have also tentatively discussed adding another train between White River Junction and Springfield, Massachusetts that would enable greater flexibility in passenger travel times.
Read more about this topic: Vermonter
Famous quotes containing the words proposed, equipment, change and/or service:
“On the 31st of August, 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine,... I proposed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second highest mountain in New England, about thirty miles distant, and to some of the lakes of the Penobscot, either alone or with such company as I might pick up there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.”
—Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)
“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this—as in other ways—they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“But when with moving accents thou
Shalt constant faith and service vow,
Thy Celia shall receive those charms
With open ears, and with unfolded arms.”
—Thomas Carew (1589–1639)