WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Merchants and state officials are both hopeful that Amtrak service, which drew thousands of passengers a year to downtown White River Junction before the COVID-19 pandemic, will resume in the coming months.
“When one loses a transportation service in a town, it will have an adverse effect on business,” Hartford Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director PJ Skehan said via email Wednesday. “I’m sure all the businesses and the community at large will be glad to have Amtrak running again and hopefully in the near future expand its service.”
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott last week said Amtrak could be back and running in Vermont within the next few months.
“We’ve had some preliminary discussions with Amtrak,” Scott said during a March 23 news conference. “They had told us that both the Vermonter and Ethan Allen lines will be up and going in the next couple of months.”
An exact return date for Amtrak services in Vermont has still not been released.
“Discussions are underway at the state level and with Amtrak,” Vermont Agency of Transportation spokeswoman Amy Tatko said via email this week. “We hope to make an announcement within the next several weeks as to what that timeline will look like.”
Amtrak service of the Vermonter, which runs between St. Albans and Washington, D.C., and the Ethan Allen Express, connecting Rutland and New York City, was suspended in the state at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
More than a year later, while much of public transportation has adapted to COVID-19 restrictions, Amtrak rails in Vermont remain untouched.
This is not the case for states like Maine and New York in which Amtrak has resumed operations. The service in Vermont is almost entirely state-funded, and for some, this lag prompted concern that the state was dragging in its commitment to rail travel.
David Briggs, owner of the Hotel Coolidge, which is a block from the White River Junction train station, expressed frustration over the delayed return of Amtrak to the Upper Valley. He sees it as symptomatic of the same attitude that led to the closing of the welcome center at the downtown train station by state officials last September.
“The state of Vermont comes and goes with regards to its tourist marketing and tourist services,” Briggs said. “They really let us all down by changing that commitment (to train transit).”
“Amtrak is an essential part of White River — its whole story and its whole future,” Briggs said.
The Hotel Coolidge was built in 1926, and the site has housed a hotel that was geared to rail workers and passengers for 170 years.
“It would be a really sad thing to the point of deviousness to reinvigorate the economy and not bring the Amtrak back with it,” Briggs said.
While it’s difficult to separate the causes of slower foot traffic in White River Junction this year — is it the pandemic or the pause on Amtrak? — Sarin Tin, manager of Phnom Penh Sandwich Station in the village, said the shutdown led to noticeably less commerce.
“People getting on or leaving the train would come in, so we lost all of that business,” she said.
Other merchants also noticed a difference.
“We would often have people walk in the door with a suitcase waiting to get on the train,” said Kim Souza, owner of Revolution clothing store on North Main Street.
The White River Junction Amtrak station saw 13,864 boardings and alightings in 2018 and 13,513 the following year, consistently ranking it as the third most-used in the state behind Essex Junction and Brattleboro. The Windsor station had 1,198 passengers; Randolph, 2,053; and Claremont, 2,320.
Souza, a member of the Hartford Selectboard, echoed Briggs’ call for a stronger passenger train system in Vermont.
“If you could take a train from here to Burlington, that would be a great service to the state,” she said.
During his news conference last month, Scott was asked about potential health precautions taken on Amtrak upon its resumption.
“We have guidelines right now for public transit, and I would imagine that they would mimic those,” he replied. “Probably masking up and trying to keep your distance.
In the meantime, as the service prepares for its return to Vermont, Amtrak will be running safety training sessions for staff on passengerless trains, Scott said.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a massive infrastructure proposal that included $80 billion for rail that could provide new rail service between Concord and Boston; St. Albans, Vt., and Montreal; and Rutland and Burlington, and “enhanced service” on existing lines. The plan would require approval by Congress.
Frances Mize can be reached at Frances.A.Mize.22@dartmouth.edu.