Montrealer (train)

Montrealer

A special train celebrating the return of the Montrealer poses at Amherst station on July 17, 1989, the day before regular service began.
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Discontinued
Locale	Quebec New England Mid-Atlantic states
First service	June 15, 1924
Last service	March 31, 1995
Successor	Vermonter
Former operator(s)	Amtrak Boston & Maine Canadian National Central Vermont New Haven Railroad Pennsylvania Railroad
Route
Termini	Washington, D.C. Montreal, Quebec
Stops	27
Distance travelled	666.2 miles (1,072.1 km)
Service frequency	Daily
On-board services
Seating arrangements	Reclining seat coaches
Sleeping arrangements	Sleeping car (1975)
Catering facilities	Dining car (1975)
Baggage facilities	Baggage car

The Montrealer was an overnight passenger train between Washington, D.C., United States, and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The train was operated from 1924 to 1966, and again under Amtrak from 1972 to 1995, excepting two years in the 1980s. The train was discontinued in 1995 and replaced by the Vermonter, which provides daytime service as far north as St. Albans, Vermont. Current Amtrak service to Montreal is provided by the daytime Adirondack from New York City via Albany.

History

Previous service

The original Montrealer entered service on June 15, 1924. The train provided overnight service from Washington, D.C., to New York City and Montreal on a route that passed through New England. The Washingtonian operated over the same route in the southbound direction.

Both trains ran over five railroads: the Pennsylvania Railroad, the New Haven Railroad, the Boston & Maine Railroad, the Central Vermont Railway, and the Canadian National Railway, which worked together to provide the equipment and crews to operate the train.

The Montrealer in St. Albans, Vermont in 1965

When it was inaugurated, the Montrealer also provided through service to Ottawa and Quebec City. During the summer months the Quebec car originated a few days a week in Murray Bay, a resort area 86 miles (138 km) northeast of Quebec City.

North of the U.S.-Canadian border, in early years the train traveled east of Missisquoi Bay and through Iberville on the route north to Montreal. By the 1950s the route was rerouted through Alburg, Vermont, and in Quebec made stops at Cantic, St. Johns and St. Lambert before reaching Montreal.

The Montrealer and the Washingtonian first ran during the days of Prohibition in the United States. The Washingtonian became known unofficially as "The Bootlegger" or simply "The Boot" because passengers often carried well-hidden bottles of liquor on the southbound train. During the Prohibition years the Washingtonian was a favorite target of U.S. federal agents who would board in St. Albans and search the train looking for illegal liquor. During the 1940s extra sections of the train were added for skiers on weekends in the winter months from New York to Waterbury, Vermont.

By the 1960s, service consisted of two daily round trips: the Washington–Montreal Montrealer/Washingtonian, and the New York City–Montrealer section of the Ambassador. On September 6, 1966, the trains were unceremoniously discontinued between Montreal and Springfield, Massachusetts. Previously, the Ambassador had been an entirely separate day train counterpart to the Montrealer. The New Haven Railroad continued to operate its portion of the train between Springfield and New York City until December 31, 1968, when most passenger service on the New Haven–Springfield Line was discontinued, upon the implementation of the merger of the New Haven Railroad into the Penn Central.

Amtrak era

Montrealer (1972–1987)
0  Montreal 4 km 2 mi Saint-Lambert Quebec, Canada Vermont, USA 69 mi 111 km St. Albans 93 mi 150 km Essex Junction 115 mi 185 km Waterbury 125 mi 201 km Montpelier 186 mi 299 km White River Junction 226 mi 364 km Bellows Falls 249 mi 401 km Brattleboro VT MA 292 mi 470 km Northampton 309 mi 497 km Springfield MA CT 334 mi 538 km Hartford 344 mi 554 km Berlin 352 mi 566 km Meriden 368 mi 592 km New Haven 385 mi 620 km Bridgeport 408 mi 657 km Stamford CT NY 417 mi 671 km Rye 444 mi 715 km New York NY NJ 454 mi 731 km Newark Penn 501 mi 806 km Trenton NJ PA 529 mi 851 km North Philadelphia 534 mi 859 km Philadelphia PA DE 561 mi 903 km Wilmington DE MD 630 mi 1014 km Baltimore 660 mi 1062 km Capital Beltway closed 1983 MD DC 670 mi 1078 km Washington, D.C.

Amtrak began operation of a New York train, called the Montrealer northbound and Washingtonian southbound, on September 30, 1972. St. Lambert was the only intermediate station in Quebec retained from the previous iteration. It was the first train for which Amtrak hired its own staff, rather than contracting with the host railroad. The train was named Montrealer in both directions on May 19, 1974. The Washingtonian was also Train 185, which came from New York and later, along with most other regular trains on the Northeast Corridor, folded into one NortheastDirect in 1995. The Montrealer acquired a reputation as a party train due to the large numbers of skiers who would take the train, staying up late into the night or not sleeping at all. Amtrak equipped the train with its own dedicated lounge car, outfitted with an electric piano, dubbed Le Pub.

Derailments

Amtrak's Montrealer suffered numerous derailments during its years of operation:

• On January 5, 1973, the train derailed in Randolph, Vermont, due to a wrongly set switch.
• On September 5, 1981, nine cars of the southbound train derailed in Hatfield, Massachusetts. No serious injuries were reported among the 328 passengers.
• On February 14, 1982, the train derailed in Holyoke, Massachusetts, near the Smith's Ferry section of the city. Four people were treated for minor injuries. An investigation found that the cause of the derailment was a spreading of the tracks.
• On February 14, 1984, the train derailed in Vernon, Vermont.
• On June 29, 1990, the train derailed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on a curve just west of the Philadelphia Zoo. Two passengers were injured.

1984 wreck

On the morning of July 7, 1984, the northbound Montrealer (carrying 262 passengers and 16 crew) was derailed by a washed-out culvert between Williston and Essex, Vermont. Heavy rains over the previous night had broken beaver dams upstream, resulting in a 50-foot (15 m) washout in the 20-foot-high (6 m) embankment. Five of the train's thirteen cars fell into the stream, with one sleeper car buried under several other cars. Three passengers, one Amtrak attendant, and one Central Vermont Railway crew member were killed; 29 others were seriously injured. The train included four private chartered passenger cars, doubling the usual passenger load and increasing the number of injured; the resulting rescue operation involved extricating dozens of trapped passengers and was then the largest in Vermont history.

Despite the severity of the wreck, the death toll was low due to circumstances permitting quick rescue: area hospitals were at shift changes with doubled staff levels, a 2,400-person Vermont National Guard detachment with helicopters and a tank retriever was nearby preparing for training, and a large mobile crane was at a construction site in nearby Georgia, Vermont. The National Transportation Safety Board investigation faulted Amtrak for the lack of a proper cab radio and recommended changes in locomotive battery placement, improvements in baggage rack and seat cushion retention, and the use of shatterproof mirrors in passenger cars.

Suspension and return

The platform at Willimantic, Connecticut, used from 1991 to 1995

The Montrealer was suspended north of Springfield, Massachusetts, on April 6, 1987, because of deteriorating track conditions between Brattleboro and Windsor, Vermont. During the suspension, Amtrak offered bus service (operated by Peter Pan Bus Lines) between Burlington, Vermont, and Springfield, with connecting Amtrak service in Springfield.

This situation precipitated the only instance of Amtrak seizing another railroad by eminent domain, followed by the re-sale of the track by Amtrak to the Central Vermont Railway. The matter went all the way to the Supreme Court in National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Boston & Maine Corp., which upheld Amtrak's action. Led by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Representative Silvio Conte of Massachusetts, Congress appropriated $5 million to rebuild the track. Only the section between Windsor and Brattleboro, Vermont, was transferred, however, leaving the Connecticut River Line between East Northfield and Springfield, Massachusetts, as an obstacle.

The Montrealer was reinstated in July 1989 with a longer routing to avoid the Connecticut River Line. The train used the Central Vermont Railway between East Northfield and New London, Connecticut (with a stop at Amherst to replace the former Northampton stop) and the Northeast Corridor between New London and New Haven. Although slightly slower than the old route, this allowed for safe and reliable service. A special daytime train was run on July 17, 1989; regular service began with the northbound train on the 18th and the southbound on the 19th. On November 1, 1991, an intermediate stop was added at Willimantic, Connecticut.

Montrealer service ended on March 31, 1995, amid a budget crisis. It was replaced with the Vermonter, a daytime train sponsored by the state of Vermont, the next day. The Vermonter terminated at St. Albans rather than Montreal; it was routed over the New Haven-Springfield Line plus a section of the Boston Subdivision to reach the Central Vermont at Palmer.

Planned extension of the Vermonter to Montreal

Efforts have been underway for many years to extend the Vermonter to Montreal. In 2012 the Federal Railroad Administration awarded $7.9 million to allow for the upgrade of the existing freight rail line between St. Albans and the Canada–US border. Work on this project was completed in late 2014.

On March 16, 2015, the United States and Canada signed an agreement that would allow for the establishment of a pre-clearance customs and immigration facility within Central Station in Montreal. Before the Vermonter can be extended to Montreal the agreement must first be approved by Congress and the Parliament of Canada, and a preclearance facility must be constructed within Central Station.

On December 8, 2016, US President Barack Obama signed bipartisan legislation enabling US-Canada preclearance. On December 12, 2017, Canada's Governor General gave a royal assent to Bill C-23 enacted by Canada's House and Senate. The remaining hurdles to implementing the preclearance regime are an Order in Council in Canada, and a joint agreement between the two countries on construction of the facilities in Montreal and the service operating procedures.

Further reading

• Lapointe, Joe (September 12, 1993). "To Montreal, the Restful Way". The New York Times.
• Nelligan, Tom (October 1989). "Amtrak's Montrealer returns". Trains. ISSN 0041-0934.
• United States Congress Senate Select Committee on Small Business. The Impact of the Proposed Elimination of the "Montrealer": Hearing before the Select Committee on Small Business, South Burlington, Vt., May 11, 1979 (Report). U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 99. OCLC 5750460.

External links

• Montrealer timetable | August 8, 1960