Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: You're live. This

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: is Senate Transportation, and it is January 7. And we are here with the rail and aviation director, and thank you.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Good morning. Yeah. Daniel Lab here. I'm actually just the rail bureau director now.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Well, you're typing in the agenda

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: in some of our We

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: should correct that. Yeah. I I gave up aviation a little over a year ago. So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: Is there an aviation director, or did they get Yeah.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. It's Evan Evan Robinson. Yeah. We separated rail and aviation. It was separated. We put it together. We put it apart.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: There's a lot going on in the rail, so plenty to do.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Is that mean you couldn't make up your mind? Or

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: It's whatever they ask me to do.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: So so

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: yeah. Good morning. I was asked to come in to have an open discussion about what we in rail, how we generate revenue on the right of way that we have. Now we have four active railroads, and then we have four rail trail properties. So and I have separated them on the report that I'd sent in, I don't know, a month ago or so. There was an error on the report that I it was a math error that was on the original report. So that's why I've given you a new report because the broadband number in a spreadsheet, when we did the sum, there was a section that wasn't highlighted in the sum total. There was actually more there's actually more revenue. It's all on the spreadsheet. It just didn't sum at the bottom, and I used the number at the bottom when I hit it or more. So I don't know. I'll go over that. So the the $148,003.11 is incorrect, which you don't have in your slides. If it's +1 99888, that is the correct number for broadband on the active rail, and I apologize for the error. So let me just quickly go over how we do it. Again, there's four different railroads, active railroads. We have to work with the active railroads to make sure anything that is put in the railroad right away can be done safely and that the railroad doesn't have a conflict with it. So if there's a I'll give you an example. If we have to put a a hole in or a a guide wire or something like that, we have to make sure that that's not in the way of railroad operations. So that's one of the things that's different from railfareils for active rails. It's any lease or license agreement, we have to discuss it with the railroad first to make sure it's all work same and work together. But just going over the report real quickly, and then we can open it up just for discussion. I was asked for what's the total of wired or wireless telephone revenue. We have gone this number used to be larger. And why I say it was larger because it used to be just telephone. Now a lot of the companies that provide telephone also provide broadband. So a lot of those have moved from the wired telephone column over into the broadband column. So if they do both, they're in the broadband column. That's where all the revenue shows in it. So that's one of the reasons why, you know, we're a 199 almost 200,000 for that and only 5,000 for wired for telephone. Okay.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: And then the third one was leases of right

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: of right of way for the purposes other than operations of railroads. So this could be many, many different things. This could be literally someone asking for a private crossing for a driveway. It could be if there's a rebuttal. A lot of times, there's companies that are up against the railroad that say, wow. We wanna just expand our parking lot, whatever, into a little bit. You guys aren't using this. We'll look at it and say, are we using it or not? Okay. We're not. Merrill, you're not using it. Okay. Do you care? No. We don't care. So we we might lease some excess property and charge them a lease just for the excess property. So just to define what these columns are, that's what it is. So that's either telephone, broadband, or other purposes, which are many. And that's what these dollar amounts or these columns, so that's what they represent. And, again, we oh, sorry.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: No. Go ahead. Can I ask what you're gonna say about this and then

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: No? I think I was done. Senator, if you can So

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: where in this would be, like, utility electric companies? So

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: they would be in other because they're not broadband and they're not wireless. So if there was, say, just say Green Mountain Power, for instance. But see, some of these electrical companies also have they're weird. They have, like, a sister company that has, like, a broadband or a a communication type thing. Some of them are not all like that.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: I served for six years on the for about electric haul. Okay. I'm have that arm now for four or five years. Got it. There's consistent effort by the utility company to move poles out of open territory. Pole out in the middle of a meadow someplace. They they have consistently been moving everything right up to the right of way to the front. Mhmm. So and in the Vermont Electric territory, half of their pools are consolidated pools.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Half of the pools are Vermont Electric, and the and they share the usage of the poles in this. So I'm not I'm looking at this and going, I don't I don't understand how this all fits together. I see what your dollars amount are, but I don't get what's do you charge a standard amount for Yes.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yep. If if you go to our website, under the rail property management, there's a there's a rate sheet. It shows how much per pole. It shows if you had a guy wire coming down and it was sticking on our property, or if there was a longitudinal yeah. Line for, you know, so many feet, it's x amount of dollars. If it's just a crossing, if you're just going directly across Yep. There's a charge for that.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: So Could we get that sheet?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. Like I said, I can send you the link. It's it's a it's a fairly large document. So, like, I mean, I it's easier just to send you a link so that you can

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: go there. Is it a

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: party of the rail lease document, which has seen that before?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. So we refer to that document in our lease, but we don't it's not got an attachment to it.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: And how do how has the agency how did you set those rates to begin with? What are your, and when was the last time the document was updated and

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Sure. So the utility charges so let's just look at this holistically. We we in Vermont, you know, the administration is like, let's try to get more broadband. Let's increase this in the state of Vermont. There was a so our fees on utilities like electrical, broadband, telephones, those haven't changed probably in probably 2004, I think, was the last time we've changed them. It's been a long time. We have not changed. We have not increased those. Those those fees have been the same for a long time. Land leases where, you know, they're doing excess property, nothing to do with the broadband or, the plan from that, but if they just want, like, a parking lot or whatever. We have an appraisal section at AOT, and in 2024, we had them look at our town by town, go through and look at our lease rates per square foot, and we have a per square foot fee that was updated last in 2024. And that's on that website. It's on that sheet. But the utilities have not been updated in a long time. We are still charging, you know, what we consider to be fair, but they're on the low side.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: How do you decide if they're low? Is there

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Compared to okay. So when I say low side there, if you took a like, the New England Central private railroad, they're gonna charge What they charge? Likely double or a little more than what we charge in the state of Vermont. So we are definitely less than a private railroad. Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Yeah. And

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: and and that's category number two.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: It would be it would be all three categories, but

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Well, I thought the leases Well were updated are category three.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yes. Three three would be the land leases. Also in category three are, like, power companies. Right? So that's not broadband or telephone. So that's in that's in the other. But, yes, that is probably number three is the most up to date as far as, like, appraised value of Portland, but utility side of it hasn't been updated.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Okay. So so

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: category two plus the power companies

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Are the ones that are

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: from roughly 2004.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Right. Is there any process for review of the rates? So since 2004, has the agency or

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: We haven't taken it on purposely because of the push to increase broadband. We would you know, instead of creating additional hurdles for these folks, you know, we haven't changed our rates. And I'm sure when you well, I shouldn't speak for them, but I don't think they'd be a candidate. But Well, I We've got compete we've got competing interests, right, as we all do sometimes.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: We all have competing interests. All have trying to understand how we come up with and have looked at a fair rate to And, do you know, it goes back to the overall. We have an agency that is has some financial difficulties, you know.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Sure.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: And I think we've all been in the place where we put a lot of money, particularly during COVID, a lot of public money into expanding broadband and and WiFi around the state. And so I think it has been the state policy that we wanna see all of that expanded. You know, looking at this since nothing has changed since 2004, how do we make a judgment around what's fair?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. No. I I understand the question. I and perhaps it's time to look at it. I would say we could work with utility companies or, you know

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: How did they set the rates initially?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: I don't know. I wasn't here then, so I don't know. But these were rates I I came in 2010. They were the same rates.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: Is there a plan to update the rates or just so you might be at that rate? And do you need the guidance from the left side to say you shall update the rate?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: I think that's I think that's above my pay grade thing as far as whether the administration is looking for us to look at a rate change. I don't know that the director of rail is gonna say it's time.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Right. But I don't know if

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: are they have they already decided that it's time, or is it

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: just No. I haven't heard nobody's directed me or even brought it up before this came up.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: Because in the past, we have had testimony on this, and I the sense I got it from the agency was that today you're purposely keeping it low because they feel like it's a public good for help but cut it by like why raise the rates on the electric companies or the broadbands because they're just going to have to raise the rates that just won't

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: be good. Well, that's what that is literally what's So I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: don't know if that's the policy, so you're purposely not Well,

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: it hasn't been that formal, but I can say that we know that there's a administrative directive to increase broadband on the state. Right. So this would be sort of counter to that. So I guess it just hasn't been brought up or picked up and looked at. But do, like I said, we do periodically look at land lease rates. We keep those at Airbnb. That's easier to compare. Yeah. You can do an appraised value in your town and look at how it's changed over the last five years or more. So

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Now all that all becomes subjected to. I've had lots of constituents complain that you move the road. And and the road base changed. I had one this fall. Road, had changed. There was a strip of land. They used to be on the road. They're not now, so they're trying to get across the strip that was and they were gonna be charged a few thousand dollars a year ago. I didn't move the road, and I bought an original piece of land. It it you know, so it all becomes subjective. And I totally think it totally legitimate that we have a conscious decision that we wanna keep rates low because we want broadband to spread around the state. Mhmm. But it what it does sound like after twenty one or two years that it may not be a conscious decision now. It may just be that yeah. Any information about the history of this that you can get the committee will be good. On the last rate change? The last rate change, you know, any directives why we wouldn't take a look at the rate, you know, any information in in that area.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: Yeah. Does the agency have a

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: policy check that they

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: don't want to No. I mean, I this literally has not been a big conversation about it's either time to do it or we're deciding to not do it. That really hasn't been the conversation. Well, look, I will say in the utility world, at least from, there has been a,

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: they've tried to move power lines and power that was closer to the right of way. It's better for the countryside, it's better for, you know, if you've got a telephone pole in the middle of a farmer's field. Yeah. It's it's better for everybody than that. So there's been a conscious decision, I think, to at least with some companies, move in a way that is better for everybody. But that does put more poles within your right of way.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: So the highway right of way, which I'm not we don't none of this not this doesn't include this as well only in it. The highway right of way doesn't charge solar companies to put wires or poles in their right of way. That's a that's a policy decision. It's there's a state statute for that that says no good. Yeah. It says highways. You that are not be based in the highways. But but they For

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: the public. Just just do any of these pay a property tax? Do any of these Electric poles do pay a property tax.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: I don't know how they're billed for property tax purposes, but if they're on our property, there's no separate bill for property tax because it's on state property. Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Go ahead.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: So just relative to the highway, I thought that part of the issue of charging in the highway was that we don't know definitively where the right of the lines are. So I

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: think that's part of the issue but we you know, we should talk about that as we go along.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: But it would be helpful to know what other states are charging for especially the category two plus the power companies, if you're able to get that information. Okay.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Vermont, not all states own railroads. Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Or with the railroads.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Actually both. What the railroads are charging and what other states charge.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: I think that would be helpful for us.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Are you Yeah. Mean, I think you could probably get New England Central come in and give you their rates. I don't know that they'll give them to me, but I

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: can ask them. I

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: know they're higher than ours.

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: When you when you have a purple price and a company's leasing that one pole, and then they down the line they're sharing a pole with another entity. Does that happen very often? It does, and it's the pole

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: owner that pays. It would be if

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: Oh, it's the owner of the pole, and then they would recoup any costs from the share e or

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. They if you're Green Mountain Power and you're on Comcast or whatever, it's Comcast that's paying and Green Mountain Power's however their agreements work together and what, we would pay we they would both need a crossing for their own wires. Right? So they only Yeah. If they were crossing over, but the pole wasn't charged to

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: the pole owner. And it's the same price for a shared pole as it is for privately owned? Yeah. All in a day. Yeah.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: All is all the same. One single price for

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: Well, if you had three users on it and, know

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: We don't charge them three times. No. I gotcha. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: But they're probably charging the

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: other I would guess. I don't know what

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: I mean, that's typical.

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: So the full owner basically in that instance is only paying well, let's say they split it $50.50. They're paying full full price for this pole and their shared pole down here, they're only paying half because they have somebody sharing, if that's the case.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. I mean, we would only charge the co owner. So we don't we don't know what happens up without care. And no. It's not up to us.

[Sen. Patrick “Pat” Brennan, Member]: Right. Yeah. I gotcha.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Things you don't think about, right, when you're on the upper airway, by the way? Yeah. All this other stuff? Stuff we manage on a daily basis. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Thank you for doing the annual report.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Yeah.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: I I I apologize for the error.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Not there. But it is We will be looking for, you know, any background.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. I will I will look back and ask some people that were here before me. They did an on the last time we did a utility. We no. We haven't done one since I've been here on the.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: So We it's gotten better since COVID, and we dumped in, you know, literally hundreds of millions to expand the system. Mhmm. I just, right around Christmas, went to the meeting of Lamoille Fiber National. We have a rail trail that has Yeah. Stuff on it. And and the question always comes, what have you done for us lately to help expand quantifying what the the different areas, even if we make the decisions that we don't wanna change rates. It's I wanna be able to say to the community, you know, we we charge a much lower rate for people to be on our property than the private companies do.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. You can say that. It's a 100%. That's a there's no question about that statement. Yep. You

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: know, I, you know, I I I just went to the Memorial Fire. They have their representative there from. Mhmm. And, you know, kind of questions. They are thankful for what we've done, but we finished running fiber all through my town. We were one of the first that got Nice. And and pretty much the conversation in the room is, you know, what are you gonna help us with next? And and and, you know, so to be able to quantify something like this and and why we've made the decision, it is it literally, that was the conversation. This is right, you know, right around Christmas, they have their annual meeting. And and it's like, oh, we just gave you, I can't remember, tens of millions of dollars to run it, and it's not enough. Is

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: it ever enough?

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: No. No.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: But certainly, you know, utilities like that, take the Lonely Valley Rail Trail for an example, that goes a long way, right? So we have longitudinal occupations, we have stuff that just crosses over directly, so the active rail, the Mont Railway from, well, Bennington basically to Burlington, there's a fiber optic line that goes the entire western side of the state, goes from south to Burlington all the way up. You know, the utility companies know where our railroads are, they know where our rail trails are, they just they wanna use them. I I mean, unless it's a significant operational issue, you know, it's we let them in. Any

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: background you can give us about how they set those rates originally? What directives there are. So I can tell

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: you there's no mistake. I haven't had this literally has not been a big conversation at AOT, so there's been no directive to say increase or don't.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Well, it whatever you set the rates, there must be some original statute that gives authority. And

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. So back in 2004.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Yep. Yep. There must be something that gives you the authority to be able to do this. Yeah. Also, any history about this that you produce would be. Okay. Just

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: one other question. There's broadband in the rail trails and the active railroad. Are the are the rates different?

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: No. Same rates. Okay. And it shows it on that sheet. Okay.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Okay. Go. Mister Chair, are we open to asking other Real Estate questions or are you hoping

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: to spend the whole the majority of the time on the right side of the vacation?

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: I think you're in the chair. I think you're in the hot seat. I hope I

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: can answer it. Okay. Well,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: then I'm gonna I have a couple of general questions kind of about our program, and I know the budget hasn't come out yet. So there's not you know, you can't fully speak to what is going to happen. But and then I have a specific question about right of ways with a project that's being impacted in my due diligence. So I just wanna make sure I pull up the email when I ask you those questions so I can get the right information. But for the first question, we're definitely seeing a a negative we're not going to see as large of a budget this year from AOT. And I'm wondering if that is something that we should expect to see in rail being impacted.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. I probably don't wanna talk about that today. I can't get ahead of other folks.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Okay. Are there any maybe a different way to ask the question to let you be able to provide context. Do you see any major changes to what we saw last year in your plan?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah, mean, I'll definitely come in and go over the budget when we're ready, and I can detail out any changes that have happened between last year and this year at that time, but I probably can't do it today.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Okay. Then I'll ask you my more specific question. So Honey Acres is a solar project that has a right of way issue with us as a state because they are being told that they can't connect. And they haven't been able to get a response from the rail folks in particular. It looks like it's someone from, like, AVP from government affairs as their representative. I'm wondering if you have any suggestion on if we're experiencing kind of seems like a right of way

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Which route?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Which route is it?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Think it's

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Is it NACR?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Yes. It is. Okay. Yeah. It's NECR.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Okay.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: And it's Charles Hunter. I don't know how we can support constituents when they're experiencing rail related issues. I know we had a whole bunch of problems with municipalities who were having difficulty with, like, running water underneath rail. And in this case, it's an electric connection that's basically delaying a solar project from being interconnected, which feels like a real bummer. Okay. So what would your suggestion be to

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Okay. So with the I mean, Charles is a really good guy. I mean, he's I don't he's busy. The the the issue with Charles is he has not just moving up central. He has all a whole bunch of railroads from Vermont down the East Coast that he's government affairs director for. So busy guy. Not to make that as an excuse for him, but he is a busy guy. And that's not even though that's his title, government affairs, he would then refer that issue to his property management people, which are in Jacksonville, Florida.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Okay. So so

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: that's a big disconnect. Right? Though it's a when you're starting to try and communicate about a Vermont crossing to someone that's sitting in Jacksonville, Florida, you can probably appreciate the the difficulty with that. So I certainly am happy to reach out to Charles to see if I can help you with this. Putney what?

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Putney

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Putney's Putney Green Acres Solar Project.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Okay. Putney Green Acres Project.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: And it is related to, I believe, their updated site plan, they're just waiting. There's like an under

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Is it in I don't actually know what

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: the address is. I thought it was in my district, but it might just be because the company is in my district. But it is called Put in the Acres, so

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Okay. And it's a It feels like they're trying to put electrical crossing That's right. Across the acre, across the NCR. Okay. Yeah. I think I I mean, I don't know anything about it. I apologize, but I I can try to find some information out.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: That would be great. Yeah. It I think little things like that come up quite a bit for constituents, and I appreciate you explaining that there is a different central office potentially that manages some of those. And I think that delay is is a serious thing for

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: us. So just so you know, New England Central is one of, like, a 100 railroad companies that Genesee and Wyoming owns. So they are literally worldwide. Right? So they're the largest short line railroad in the world. And their property management division is in Jacksonville, Florida, for all these railroads all across US and even Europe. So they're a big company. And so sometimes the little things that seem big

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Yes.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: To them may not seem big. So sometimes you just gotta make some noise. I'll try to do that for you.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Thank you. I really appreciate it. And I did just wanna compliment you on the great work in White River Junction and the way that you have improved the the platform. Is it now ADA accessible? Is it considered

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: It is all ADA accessible. New lighting, new bump strips. The whole thing is it's level now. It it was asphalt. It was asphalt before. Doesn't like it. It was asphalt before, so it had some humps in it. Now it's concrete. So it's Did you talk about the movement then?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: I asked about

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: it.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: And I so appreciate the senator from Washington understanding the need for this topic to be brought up, but it is actually within the historical division is my understanding is this gentleman, we cannot

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: we can't

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: we can't interrogate him about it.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: It's I have no authority over the weather thing. It's gone to the historical folks.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: And on other training topics, should we have Amtrak come in if we just wanna hear about

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: the Amtrak?

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Or is that something that you would come in to talk about?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: The control of the issue, what are you what are you gonna Ridership.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: Future plans, maybe Yeah. You know, maybe it's a combination of UNM or maybe it's just here.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. Mean, we they have a government affairs person.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: But they'll come in another year. Yeah. They can

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: I think you should ask them to come in? Think I think they're more than willing to come in, and they they can bring all that ridership information in tell you what plan there. The Brattleboro Station should be done this summer.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Yeah. That's really exciting.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: It's really exciting because it's the first online high level platform in the state of Vermont. Right. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Level boarding. Level boarding.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: You used to have to get off at, like, the parking place.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Yeah. I did it last month. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Yeah. I mean, in the snowstorms, it was horrendous.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: That platform's kinda neat because they put heat pipes and things inside the flat, so they don't have to put salt on the platform. It's just gonna stay warm and melt the snow. It's kinda Kinda state of the art Yeah. Station.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: We're excited.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. I'm excited to see

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: And we're thinking about making a

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: really big deal at the opening too.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: And you all will be invited.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Great.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: Make the train go.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: That's what we're talking about. Yeah. And I just stayed there for the day, and then they train.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Yes. Yeah.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah. And that's we're we're excited

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: about that. We have to get permission from the president from the committee's office.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: We get to have

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik, Member]: a committee meeting on the train.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: There you go.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: We're being separate. It'd great. It'd be nice too. But, like, if we would it clear if you're not Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: If we already have to turn

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: back, it's, like, 04:00, I think, at least. It's five.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: Five. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: One more.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Okay. This is because I know you can't talk about the budget. This is a general question, and it might be She's

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: gonna get me in trouble.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: I know. I'm may be I'm

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: making a quick question very quick.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Cost of path is who I should ask as well. But we have traditionally gotten a waiver for the one stop. What if there's a special type of federal waiver that we've gotten to not have to install, like, one stop or first stop technology, I might not be using the right term.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Right. So in Vermont, we don't have enough trains to trigger all the signals that are needed for trains. Like, if you go down into New York City, there's just signals all the time. The train will have to actually link up with this software that knows where all the other trains are so that they can't eat together. But we don't have to do that in Vermont because we don't have enough trends, if that's what you're talking about.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Oh, okay. I had Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. It's a positive trend.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Positive trend. Okay. Didn't know if Okay. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Positive trends. And what I had heard was that was our big bay that's new information because what I had heard was our big barrier to getting commuter rail to be able to run on most of our

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: lines because we didn't have positive training.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Okay. So interstate passenger rail, which is what Amtrak is, runs in a different rule book than commuter rail. Okay? If you're in the rule book of commuter rail, you need PTC. So, okay. So we are not in a book of rules. Go by number of intercity passenger trains and brake trainings combined, and the timing and the schedules to see how close they run. Two trains can't be in the same block of track at the same time with that rule. If you get into commuter rail, you've got trains running literally within minutes of each other, and that's when you need PTC. Okay.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: So it still is a barrier.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Know It is a barrier for commuters. When you say the word commuter rail and you say inner city passenger, those are different flags that go up for me.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White, Vice Chair]: Okay. So the bud cars and the conversation I think we've had in this room about those small trains, like one engine but cars, those automatically would be considered commuter?

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: So if they're going back and forth all day, then Yeah. It kinda ends up it's gonna be commuter. Okay. Right? I mean, that's that's what everybody's probably gonna consider that. Okay. There are seasonal trains that happen, you know, like our Polar Express, you know, that happens. So you might consider that if it ran every day as a commuter type train, but because it's seasonal once every once in while, you're really walking the line, you know, depending on how many trains you run. So, yeah, I think that's apples and oranges a little bit. Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: Well, thank you for that update.

[Dan Delabruere, Rail Bureau Director (VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: So She had trouble. Well, you

[Sen. Wendy Harrison, Clerk]: don't know, but I I think you've

[Sen. Richard Westman, Chair]: So thank you, Dan. Yeah. We are gonna take a break, and you wanna show up in about a half an hour, we've got some schedule. We do have Hawaii at eleven. If you haven't looked at this, I would encourage you to take a look at this before.