Vermont transportation officials brief Senate on rail program priorities, Montreal study and bridge upgrades

Dan DeLazier, rail bureau director at the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), gave the Senate Transportation Committee a roughly hour‑long briefing July 20 on the agency’s rail program, its budget priorities for the coming year and several ongoing projects, including a next‑phase study for service to Montreal.

Why it matters: VTrans told senators that rail carries a significant share of freight that would otherwise use highways, that some state‑owned bridges still fall short of the 286,000‑pound standard used for modern freight trains, and that competitive federal grants and intergovernmental cooperation will be needed to move several corridor projects toward construction.

DeLazier opened by describing Vermont’s daily freight flows and the role of two passenger routes. “On a normal day, we have between a 50 to 200 railcars that move in and out of Vermont every single day,” he said, adding that converting that freight to truck trips would add “about 6 to 800 additional trucks per day.” He said Vermont Rail Systems and New England Central move roughly 22,000 railcars a year and support several hundred local jobs.

Program scope and assets: VTrans staff said Vermont has about 572 miles of active railroad, of which 298 miles are state‑owned and 274 are privately owned. The agency reported 172 rail bridges in its maintenance responsibility and roughly 422 public railroad crossings (456 track counts when multiple tracks at one crossing are counted). DeLazier said the rail program inspects every public crossing annually.

Bridge upgrades and 286,000‑pound capacity: DeLazier described multi‑year work to raise route capacity to the common 286,000‑pound standard. He said 10 years ago roughly half of the state‑owned bridges lacked 286,000‑pound capacity; that number is now down to 12 state‑owned bridges that don’t meet the standard. He described a multiyear corridor project from Rutland toward Hoosick, New York, and named a roughly $53,000,000 project (about $43,000,000 from the Federal Railroad Administration) that will complete 286,000‑pound capacity on that corridor this summer.

Passenger service, schedules and capacity: DeLazier reviewed Vermont’s two state‑supported passenger routes, the Vermonter and the Ethan Allen. He said Amtrak operations for the two trains are expected to cost Vermont roughly $9.5 million (the agency pays its share each month after accounting for fare revenue) and that federal matching funds (CMAQ and other federal sources) cover a portion of those costs. On capacity, he said typical trains in Vermont now run 30–40 cars; a train could reach roughly 100 cars before operators would choose to split it into multiple trains. He also noted practical constraints such as layover and yard geometry in St. Albans that limit adding cars overnight.

Montreal service feasibility: On the long‑term goal of restoring or extending the Vermonter to Montreal, DeLazier said VTrans and partners hold monthly discussions with Quebec, Amtrak and New York officials and that Quebec has advanced a next‑level engineering study of Montreal Central Station. He said that preclearance inside the station is a priority to avoid long border stops. VTrans has included a placeholder of $100,000 in the budget for a forthcoming engineering phase; DeLazier characterized that as an incremental step toward a larger engineering effort and eventual bid package.

Local projects and economic development: The briefing highlighted several discrete projects, including a transload siding and propane transload equipment funded in part by a Northern Borders grant in Barton to support local economic development. DeLazier said the state also has platform and station repairs (White River Junction was noted) and corridor design work for the Green Mountain and Connecticut River corridors intended to make future federal grant applications more competitive (roughly 30% design is typically required to be competitive for FRA corridor grants).

FEMA storm repairs and mitigation: The agency listed 19 FEMA‑related projects from the 2023 storm, with roughly $6.7 million in the budget and FEMA paying most of those costs. DeLazier described the FEMA process as sequential: emergency repairs, then restoring to pre‑disaster condition, and finally identifying mitigation steps to reduce the risk of repeat damage. He said some mitigation work—such as upsizing culverts or changing hydraulics—has already been used on corridors where applicable.

Safety and crossings: DeLazier said Amtrak and the two freight operators are upgrading about 50 crossings statewide with lights and gates as part of Amtrak safety funds and partnership work. He also described VTrans’ role in hosting Operation Lifesaver outreach and said the agency funds a staff coordinator who delivers school, driver education and first‑responder rail‑safety programs.

Local concerns raised to VTrans: Committee members raised station‑site questions, including White River Junction’s platform and roof/cupola repairs and a long‑running local request about a historic weather vane currently held by state historic preservation interests and the Shelburne Museum. DeLazier said station roof and cupola window repairs are in design and that the agency would convey the community’s interest in the weather vane to the responsible state units.

Next steps and budget highlights: DeLazier said the upcoming budget year lists 22 bridge projects, corridor design work to support federal grants, the placeholder for Montreal station engineering, and the Amtrak operations allocation. He reiterated that many of the rail program’s large projects rely on competitive federal grants administered by the FRA and other federal programs.

The Senate committee asked VTrans to share ridership and capacity trend data; DeLazier said that data is captured by the Rail Council and by Amtrak and offered to provide recent ridership reports to the committee by email.

Ending: The committee paused business to take up gubernatorial appointments, and senators indicated they may invite VTrans and Amtrak back for follow‑up sessions focused on ridership, capacity and funding details.