Montreal City Weblog

Kate 17:55 on 2024-05-18 Permalink Reply  

• PatrickC 14:28 on 2024-05-19 Permalink

  It’s been many years since I took that train, but I can remember how much rougher the tracks were on the Canadian part of the trip than on the American.
  The Wikipedia article on the train documents the long history of unfulfilled promises to improve the route, which, I had forgotten, originally used CP/D&H tracks from Windsor Station to the border.

• carswell 14:54 on 2024-05-19 Permalink

  @PatrickC In the early days of the route, you rode from Windsor Station to Grand Central Station and, before Amtrak took over, on a train with an actual sit-down dining car that had a waiter, tables with a cloth tablecloth and a rose in vase, a wine list and food cooked to order by a chef. Departing, travelling and arriving in style!

• Chris 15:15 on 2024-05-19 Permalink

  Yup, but now it’s slower and more expensive than a bus.

• Ian 17:56 on 2024-05-19 Permalink

  True, but the bus is far less pleasant a ride, even without taking the scenery into consideration.

• PatrickC 22:56 on 2024-05-19 Permalink

  @carswell I don’t remember the dining car (probably because I was a young student and couldn’t afford it), but I do remember a cheerful D &H hostess with a colourful scarf and the observation car, which, IIRC, couldn’t go all the way to NYC, since it wouldn’t fit in the tunnel to Grand Central.

• CE 09:32 on 2024-05-21 Permalink

  I’ve taken the Adirondack quite a few times and it’s always the most pleasant (albeit slowest) way to get to New York. I wish there was a dining car on that train, the cafe car is comfortable but the food isn’t great (unlike VIA which has very good food). I’ve eaten real meals in dining cars on both Amtrak and VIA and both were excellent meals and nice dining experiences as you often have to share a table with other passengers.

  If Amtrak added an overnight NYC train with sleepers, I think it would be very popular. Especially if it were possible to do customs in advance.

• dhomas 10:37 on 2024-05-21 Permalink

  Can we just get some fast trains, already? I’ll be in Spain for work this summer. There’s a fast train from Barcelona to Madrid that takes 2 and a half hours to travel about the same distance as Montreal – NYC. A ticket costs about 20 euro. Why can’t something like this be built here? Maybe the international border crossing complicates things, but surely Montreal – Toronto should be doable? What is holding us up here in Canada?

• Tee Owe 12:15 on 2024-05-21 Permalink

  @dhomas – a possible answer to your question – ownership of the tracks, and the fact that (slow) freight earns way more than fast passenger trains – nothing to do with the border, everything to do with $$$

• BobR 16:02 on 2024-05-21 Permalink

  Having followed this issue: What seems to be going on is, allll the tracks north of the border (Rouse’s Point) to Montreal need ripping out and changing. Otherwise, the trains can only go 25-40kmh, even in winter – and during hot spells in summer, even slower than that (because the tracks expand, warp, and risk derailment).

  So much slower, that the total runtime NY-YUL exceeds that (12h) allowed by the union contract of Amtrak workers, so they would have to do a crew change. Which, they can’t.

  CN insists Amtrak pays for the track work. Amtrak says “That’s in Canada; you pay for them.”

  It seems, in this case, Amtrak has agreed to pay CN replace the tracks “in the Rouse’s Point vicinity” between May 21st-June 30th, saying this will mitigate – but not fix – the problem.

  The claim, now, is the Adirondack train is suspended only until June 30th. But, I don’t see how the partial fix described in the press fixes the problem north of Rouse’s Point, so that the train indeed begins again July 1st.

  So I fully expect, come July 1st (or before) we’ll hear “Ooopsies! No, we can’t restart it at all until further notice.” And then they’ll wait until the temperatures drop in September, and start up again.

• Kate 17:33 on 2024-05-21 Permalink

  Thanks for the explanation, BobR.