Amtrak’s northbound Vermonter leaves Washington D.C.’s Union Station shortly after 8 in the morning. For the first several hours the view from the window provides a fascinating study of the sheer volume and variety of litter and industrial detritus that lies behind urban factory yards and warehouses.
Eventually blight gives way to suburban back yards until about eight hours after leaving D.C., the train crosses into Vermont. Rivers, wooded hillsides and villages pass by as it makes its way to St. Albans. These bucolic scenes are what draw visitors to Vermont. The visitors and the dollars they spend are what the state hopes justifies the $7.6 million dollars Vermont is budgeting to keep Amtrak running after October 1. The figure represents a $3.1 million increase over the current state subsidy.
Vermont isn’t the only state providing financial support for Amtrak, but it’s about to get a lot more company. As this New York Times story explains, state governments everywhere are now going to have to foot part of the bill if they want to keep their passenger train service.
Massachusetts and Connecticut will begin to contributing to the cost of the Vermonter sometime after October 1, and the state is current working on an agreement with New York to share the cost of operating Amtrak's Ethan Allen which operates between Rutland and New York City.
This Brookings Institute interactive shows ridership and the overall cost of operating each of Amtrak’s passenger lines.
The Brookings data shows ridership decreasing on the Vermonter in 2012, but as usual there’s more than one way to slice a pie chart. The numbers in recent years actually show an upward trend. According to the state, ridership is up from 50,000+ in fiscal 2006 to more than 80,000 in fiscal 2012.
The Ethan Allen carried more than 54,000 passengers in fiscal 2012 – its highest number in recent years.
