Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You're live. This is the Senate Transportation Committee. It's Wednesday, April 29. We are here with an update on the state rail plan, and it's I don't know everybody in the room, but, Dave had a long history now some years ago with my local planning commission. It was there for quite a long time.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Yes. Thank you. I'm Dave Pelletier with the Agency of Transportation, the planning section. I'm Zoe Nederland. I work with Dave also in the planning section of B TRAINS.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you. So if you can give us the update, we have about an hour. Absolutely. Thank you, Richard. Good

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: morning, Westman and other members of the senate transportation committee. We're happy to share information about the state rail plan with a few bits of information about the related state freight plan. We have a presentation that is approximately twenty minutes. It has slides on which we could go deeper. We're happy to take questions at any time or discuss it at the end as you prefer. What we hope to cover today is a few words about the coordinated planning between this rail plan and freight plan, summary of the rail plan, and a sneak peek at the freight plan, and then to wrap it together on a slide and happy to discuss any of it. Honored that we have Dan de Ladriere here as well. So we are in the planning area. He is in charge of the rail program.

[Zoe Neaderland (VTrans, Planning)]: What was that? Doing area. The doing.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Yeah. Would you like to

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: You plan and I do it.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Would you want to introduce yourself? I probably got your title wrong.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Sure. Is that fine? Got Daniel Labriere, and I'm the rail director for B TRANS.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And then can Carl introduce us also?

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: Oh, I'm Carl Fowler. I'm an advocate for rail and a member of for the last twenty five years, the State Rail Advisory Council. And going way back in the previous hour of history, I made the original structure and schedule proposal for president Burma who played 60 overnight $500 way back in 1995. So I've been in I've posed within this for a very long time. I ran a business for over thirty years that organized tours by rail all over the world, and one of our primary destinations was Vermont, and we were always interested in trying to see how it could be made better and worked out more.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And you're a huge resource to me and others.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Are you in the Windham District? No, not at all.

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: No, I live in Williston, 0. But I did live in Brownellville for many years. I'm very much looking forward to the new station. The first thing I did as a volunteer committee member beyond my involvement in Acting with the General was to sit on a town committee that tried to look at getting a new station in Brownellville starting about 1998. And we spun our wheels and spun our wheels. Just like the Montreal project, there were so many weird oddities. Who owned the power line? What side of the track the power line was on? Was the platform owned by the railroad by? It is going to be the supreme joy to see a great new station over at the railroad.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: After all these years, and

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: it does show how these projects can that might have moved glacially, but on the other hand, they eventually get done.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Thank you. I'd like to start with a slide just reorienting all of us to passenger rail and to freight rail. So on the passenger rail side, if you would. Oh, I'm sorry, to start with a slide about the coordinated planning efforts. The state is required to prepare a rail plan and a freight plan, and we do that through one contract with consultant support because we prepare the rail plan relating to Amtrak passenger rail service and freight moved by rail, and then bring the freight moved by rail side forward into the freight plan, which is all modes of freight moving. We conduct this work in an engaging manner as best as we can. So we have, we work with the VRAC and a variety of, the Vermont Rail Advisory Council and a variety of other advisory groups and outreach groups with our regional planning commissions with the public. On the VTrans website there are interactive web maps, a story map, a five minute intro to why rail matters, because not everyone realizes why it is so important and interesting. The public meetings are recorded and available on the website below. You see the links to those two web pages. And just at a very high level, in Vermont we have approximately five eighty miles of active rail, approximately 300 of which are owned by the state. There's on the order of 41,000,000 tons of freight moving into, out of, through, and within Vermont, with more to come about that, and over 116,000 passengers riding the two Amtrak lines that serve Vermont, the Vermont Zurf between St. Albans and Washington, and the Denali Express between New York and formerly Rutland, as you know, extended to Burlington in 2022, if I'm saying that right. Going on to the next slide, there were, there are always natural concerns about, well, will an expensive addition like that be used? Will it pull ridership from other lines? And the answer is ridership increased. Passenger ridership on Amtrak services serving Vermont had been increasing before COVID, it dropped during COVID, and the ridership is now up above what it had been before COVID. And not only did the Vermontor extend the Ethan Allen Express extension, not pull ridership away from the Vermontor, but the total ridership in Vermont has continued to increase. I want to note at the business side of things, we track both federal and state measures, and while no mode of transportation pays for itself, transportation is a good provided by the government for the people. Roads are not free, trains are not free, buses are not free. The farebox return on Amtrak is going in the right direction, it's quite high, and the effective speed, travel and on time performance are also going in the correct direction.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So the 87%, what does that mean exactly? The 87 and the 78%?

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: I will defer if I may, Chair Westman, to my colleagues.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I just have one comment to what you said. Roads are not free and the rail is not free. We have a lot of people that think they are, so

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: talk about that a lot.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I don't know how to get through to people and say it isn't fraying.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Yeah. This is part of why I keep saying it. But thank you for the Go ahead. May I defer?

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Sure, Fairbox Recovery essentially looks at cost versus ticket value, and there's a lot of times where there's discounted rates. There's all these factors that go into pair box recoveries. The train is not free. It does not pay for itself, but we do have a high rate of recovery for the cost that we do charge our ticket value. And this accounts for a lot of different subsidies in there, so there's not just the ticket versus So we pay our service in New York based proportion of it. There are certain It's a very complicated The percentage here is a very complicated formula, but we do have a high rate. Our ticket value, and we watch the ticket value. We actually have a, Amtrak has a calculation where we look at, can we get a dollar more, what's that gonna do to the ridership? And there's a fine line between signing a dollar to a ticket and losing 10 passengers or vice versa, Will that extra $10 gain or lose ridership? And we watch that and we monitor that. So fare box recovery is an important piece on what we evaluate a lot.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So could you just send us more detail on that?

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Sure, I'll have Amtrak do that because it's their calculator.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Perfect, thank you. Okay.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: I think at the highest level, passenger rail is doing well on the performance measures that are tracked. What you're asking is great questions, but for a broader public discussion.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Oh definitely, that's much more than I would have expected and I'm interested in rail for indirect benefits.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: To say a few words about freight rail, because freight rail has tremendous indirect benefits. I can get it out of fact, and I hope that I'm saying this correctly, but for total great rail movement in the state by all modes, I believe the direct value is on the order of $50,000,000,000 and that is expected to double by 2,050 based on the national forecasting. So movement of freight, even at the direct level, is a great contributor to the Vermont economy. And then the indirect of the jobs that it generates in passenger rail to the way that the items brought to Vermont are then added, value is added to them and they are often bought here or shipped back out because much freight is shipped out of Vermont. So in freight, there is also a tremendous amount of indirect value added to Vermont. Excuse me. The freight system in Vermont carried approximately 2,000,000 tons of freight in 2023, and while that sounds like much less than the big picture of freight, it's a very important role that freight rail serves in terms of conveying heavy, bulky goods that are not very time sensitive in a cost effective, safe manner that protects the environment and is very efficient in terms of fuel. Moving freight by rail is on the order of four times more efficient than moving by truck. And a nugget I find interesting is that you can move approximately, you can move a ton of freight approximately four seventy miles on a gallon of diesel. So freight rail has a very real role to play as we continue to move forward, serving our businesses and the environment. Additionally, what you see in the figure to the right is that where a truck carries on the order of 20 tons, a standard rail car carries on the order of 110 tons, and that freight moving freight by rail is very safe, moving the same weight and distance, for example, a billion ton miles, might involve approximately two thirty truck crashes and one train crash. And we want to eliminate all crashes, but it is to be noted that moving freight by rail is very safe.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, yes, I wish we got this slide at the beginning of our MBUF conversation, because I think the key piece that we're missing is that these large vehicles are the main contributor to our road wear and tear, and there's a really obvious alternative option. And I think disincentivizing the use of 18 wheelers, large trucks to transit our goods is a benefit to us as a state because it makes freight more competitive. And oftentimes it's cheaper for boats to ship via freight than it is to do via a trucking company. But the logistics of the trucking company are often so much more individualized. You can get A to B to CDE, you know, versus you're just A to B essentially with a train and then you need to find how to get again from that location to another. So the logistical work that a business has to do makes it harder for freight typically. You have to have like a scale, seems to be what I've seen. So I do hope that in your in your plan, you can articulate the financial benefit of disincentivizing truck travel like that. I think you also have to make that case because that's the only way that freight will be continued in our state.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: I don't know how to put that, but I think you will like our presentation, a way I might phrase that is how do we help each mode do what it does best? Exactly. Rail is very good for moving heavy, bulky, less time sensitive goods, and then trucking is very good for the last mile or last 20 mile personalized, individualized effort, and this transload movement between the two is what we will focus on, and the overall movement and connection of modes. Movement between and connection of modes is very much what we're covering in this presentation.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Amazing, okay. Well, and I already asked Dan beforehand about container freight, and come on, Virat. Like, let's do it. But that sounds like it might be a very long conversation, so I won't ask that question online.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But it's been you support it. It's super Yeah. Sensitive. No. You can take it.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: The other matter close and dear to people's hearts is flood. I

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: just wondered if

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: I'm sorry.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Do you only have data till 2023 on the amount of freight? You don't have

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: a as a planner, great data

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: is

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: hard to get and is not released as frequently as some other kinds of data. I can speak with you another time about data matters

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: and

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: some work that B TRANS is doing on that subject.

[Zoe Neaderland (VTrans, Planning)]: We can also, at the links, there are technical appendices to the plan itself and to the presentation where you could get into some of the nuances and explanation of the methodology and what data is available. We could direct you to that as well.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: And that is online, but that's one of my pet peeves.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Happy to help in the future if we can. Thanks.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Blood vulnerability and resilience. Again, a matter near and dear to many Vermonters parts. As you probably have heard before, D TRANS has a highly regarded transportation resilience planning tool oriented to highways and bridges. As part of the work on the rail plan, we expanded it in a mode appropriate manner to rail, and this is very important because if you take out part of a rail line, it's even more negatively impactful than taking out a road, because there are so few alternatives and it's so complicated to reroute a freight train or an M Track train. We were honored to work closely with Railjack. We're happy that RailsChap will integrate the results of the analysis and projects where they can, but also that this provides support for applications for grants to address the resilience of the rail system. I think that's the main points I wanted to cover with that.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Where is that bridge? Or that it looks like it's a culvert over

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: I see

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: that picture isn't left yet.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: I believe that's on the VTR, the VNR, that's down South of Rutland. And from the bridge in Ottawa.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Regard to the rail plan, it's recommended at a policy level to address the resilience of the rail system and then at specific highly vulnerable, very important locations. I thought that you always liked a slide about the public comments and discussions. There was extensive and very positive public engagement on the update of the rail plan, and primarily what I want to note with this is that one might say, does the public understand the nuances and the complexities and the interdependencies that relate to rail? And I just want to report that we got a wide variety of comments, and there was there were a lot of interesting, thoughtful comments. Many of these themes are then, yes, incorporated in the goals and the recommended initiatives. The goals of the 2025 Rail Plan build on the goals of the previous one, the 2021 Rail Plan, the main difference being the incorporation of resilience. So the goals of the Rail Plan are to maintain the existing system, which is to say, to attain and maintain a state of good repair, to expand capacity to accommodate growth, increase rail system use both at the freight and passenger level, fund the rail system adequately and sustainably. I know this is a matter you all discuss. Improving intermodal connectivity, both at the freight and passenger level, act on opportunities for ancillary and economic development, and enhance safety, security and resilience of the rail system while reducing negative impacts to the environment. I'm going to move along and just say to you, we went through a robust process both on the public engagement side and on the data analysis side. On the data analysis side, we worked both through the analysis and the comments and other related plans and previous plans to develop a range of potential initiatives, and then use a screening process and public engagement to narrow it down to 38 recommended initiatives. We use that wording because it's a whole range of things. You can't just say, let's build capital projects and take care of everything. It wouldn't be effective and there's not money for it. The approaches include policy recommendations, opportunities we see to collaborate, capital projects where they are appropriate and opportunities to work in partnership. The slides that follow show all 38 of the recommended initiatives, but I'm not going to read them. I will you will see highlighted on the slides a few of the recommended initiatives that drew particular enthusiasm and discussion, and I will just highlight one or two first slide.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Where's that photo? Jeez. Are you stuck in? Yeah. Oh, I see. It's very rough.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Beautiful. Oh, I know that is the

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: I don't know where that is.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Middleford? It's it's where there was a rock fall that your

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Oh, that's near

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Where what's your name took a series of pictures and shared them with me?

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: Sergeant in Ludlow.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: It's where there is yeah. I think it's near Ludlow where there had been a serious

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: rock fall,

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: and you see sort of by accident the tip of a vehicle that was on the tracks hoping for the check that everything was all clear and ready. These RV trans photos. So don't worry that there's a lot on these slides, Next slide, please. The recommended initiatives are presented by the goal that they most advance. I do want to note that any initiative may advance more than one goal, so they are on the slide of a goal they most serve, and I want to note that to achieve any of the recommended initiatives, often there are interdependencies and need for additional initiatives to also advance. We spoke a little bit about increasing the resilience of the rail network, and I want to touch on that the rail lines do collaborate and reach out, for example, VRS offers free training and exercising with the municipalities along the Western Quarter rail line to be prepared for if something happens. We hope nothing will happen, we'll do everything in advance. Everyone should be doing everything in advance to avoid anything happening, but we also want to be prepared if something does happen and be prepared to collaborate. I do also want to put in the good word for Operation Lifesaver, which works to increase the safety of the passenger rail system, and there's always need for volunteers to do presentations and collaborate. With regard to this achieving and maintaining the state of good repair, combined with the funding goal, we are not yet at the point of having the full rail system upgraded capacity to carry the 286,000 pound standard cars, in particular at all the bridges and having the track also ready to carry the weight of the cars. That that state of good repair also relates to the ability of the system to carry passenger rail and to carry it at speeds that people would like to see. For example, to achieve 79 miles an hour speeds where reasonable in the Vermont system. As you've seen highlighted, we're seeking grants and innovative funding as to how we proceed, and continuing to market how Vermont passenger rail is communicated to the broader world, as well as in Vermont. We want to expand capacity where it makes sense, when the resources allow, and the matters that get spoken about the most are the state's continued primary commitment to extending the Vermont or back up to Montreal, starting with one round trip a day, to add looking at the potential to extend One Valley Flyer service, which is the service that supplements Amtrak in Connecticut and Massachusetts in the research corridor up to Brattleboro or even further in White River Hymns. Even on

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: parts. We have it on our bulletin board that

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: we have.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It's somebody sent to me.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: You. This is the schedule.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yes. Can I just jump them really quick? So we can talk about this later, but the Valley Flyer is, and you can correct me, paid for generally by Connecticut and Massachusetts and it goes from New Haven to Greenfield, Massachusetts, which is pretty close to Vermont. What we're talking about is an Amtrak service, if we can get it into Vermont then Vermonters will have more than one way to get to New York on the Eastern Side and White River Junction could make a lot of sense to be the extension or it might make sense to have Rabbit be

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: it. So

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: that's just the short version but I'm advocating, you can advocate, it's, it would be really good to have that. One of the

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: steps going forward with that is that it is part of what would be studied in the FRA corridor ID programs along with the Western Corridor service that could supplement and complement the Ethan Allen Express going from Albany by way of Bennington to Burlington. To say a few words about that, would like to hand this over to my colleague.

[Zoe Neaderland (VTrans, Planning)]: Yeah, I'll just say a couple words about our work on the FRA Corridor ID program, and that's Dan to back me up on and fill any gaps on that. But we have two separate but complementary projects or processes taking place with FRA under their corridor identification and development program. It's a multi step process, and we've been through step one for both of these corridors where we develop a comprehensive scope of work, timeline, and budget for developing service, comprehensive service development plans for both of these corridors, the Vermont corridor and then this Southwestern corridor complementing what is currently there for service as well as service in New York. The next step is contingent upon FRA providing grant funding, we are waiting and holding our breath on, and if anyone wants to complement or Yeah, add anything to

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: we were progressing through the FRA process with that. Currently, we are trying to start step two. We are waiting for obligations with FRA on that. Compliment FRA here because they dedicated some funding to advance corridors, not just in Vermont, but nationally. So there's a lot of states doing this. And again, if our we were fortunate enough to get approved for two different corridors. So the our Lamar Corridor goes all the way to Montreal. Right? So it's the whole thing. It's not just what exists today.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: In in three years? In

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: three years, we're gonna no. We're not.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: We will not be in Montreal in three years. I'm just I'm I'm just

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: up the lines, could you? I know. I know.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: But, anyway, what's nice about the corridor is it's not just the existing service. My point is it's what we have today plus what we where we wanna get to, which is in our rail plan. What's the other corridor? Well, it's called the Green Mountain Corridor. We we submitted three corridor ID applications, and they they combined two of them into one. So we had the existing Ethan Allen. We called that the Ethan Allen Corridor. And then we had what we call the Green Mountain Corridor, which went from Rutland down through to Bennington Okay. And across over into New York and then down into New York. So they combine those two into one and called it the Green Mountain Court. Anyway, that's we have two, and it incorporates everything that's in our rail plan, is nice. And the FRA had bought in and said, this is what we want. And right now we're in the service development. The next phase is service development plan. So what do you have? How does it work? And then what projects do you need to keep it working? So that's kind of the steps in layman's terms on what the steps are. And there's the first phase one was 100% federal funds, phase two is 90.1 so we've got to pay 10% in state dollars for the next phase and then any projects which will be phase three will be 80.2 So the project would just be the cost, like for example,

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: extending the valley fly or?

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Well, that's one, right? That's one thing that's in the That's just like operational costs, there isn't any construction? No, it's all construction, there would not be operational costs actually. It would be any capital, including probably any additional, if we needed extra cars or we need rail cars or anything like that. But it wouldn't be operational like running the train on a daily basis. The specifics of Valley Flyer, Brattleboro or Montpelier or wherever, it just seems like it's all operational, Costanaut, unless you need new Well, we could have a really long discussion Yeah. And why it hasn't already been done. The problem is is that the Valley Flyer right now is at sort of at capacity. It's it's almost to the point where it can't pump it. So a train crew can operate so many hours. Right. Right? And to get from a to b and beyond times, you have to allow so much time. Well, that train right now is just about bumping up to where it could it it can't really go much further north without changing something operational. Right. Which is That's what saying. It's like operational cost. Like, you need a new crew. You need a new crew. Whole other train set. And right now that train goes back to Springfield at night, overnight. So where do you overnight? There's whole bunch of things that have to be worked out. It's not impossible. I think that's why I think it's in our rent plan because it is doable. Just need to figure out if we have the money to do it. It's really about my consistency. But

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: I usually say that it looks on paper easier than it is in real life because there's also signaling communication issues and other like, it's a more complicated project than it looks. That would be the way I usually summarize it. Not to say it is

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: a great project, but no, they have to be that conscious. Is right. No.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: This is very important. This is perhaps something that has really come through when one looks across the two planes, the rail plane and the freight plane, freight plane coming soon, that we want to make sure that people out on the highway network know that there is Amtrak in Vermont and how to find the stations, and then the whole realm of improving connectivity to our passenger stations, be it by modes, having adequate short term and long term parking, having convenient, comfortable pick up and drop off, and our partnerships that are needed to make all of that work well. And then similarly, we want to facilitate further development of freight transload, or potentially an intermodal facility, and educate and outreach to our our shipper, receiver, businesses, and other entities about how might this work? How might this both save them money, but also work for them in a convenient, manageable manner. And so an education and outreach element is incorporated in them.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right, can I just add to that? So notice the numbers, the ID numbers. So those are pretty recent. So what we were able to do was we put in the rail plan just that it would be really nice to have ground transportation from the train and then we also put into the bus the transit plan that they should coordinate with the train. So now both areas are talking to each other hopefully. To be

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: fair, were talking about them but with your guidance and leadership we enhanced them. Okay, okay, good. Thank you.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But it's just really important to do that.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Yes. And it again comes back to money and operations, with the complexities of having a fixed route bus meet a train that may not be on time and then the alternatives and the options. So there's a lot in there that I will restrain myself. Right, so the

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: demand response is the way that we

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: get to that. We can talk about that later. There are many options and more evolving. I do want to talk briefly about economic development that we need. The rail plan is about rail, but it's also about advancing Vermont's goals. We want to, I'm going to touch on two elements. On the freight side, we know that the amount of freight moving in the state and the amount of freight moving by rail will continue to increase based on the national forecasting and Vermont's location in this movement between the mid Atlantic area and Montreal. There will be need for facilities to transfer, be it transloading or intermodal transfer, and we have many of those facilities now. Some of them are vacant, some of them have pollution issues from years of industrial use. So at a bare minimum, we want to consider the locations that are a priority to our RPC municipal and owner partners, and try to protect their zoning, recognizing there are many demands on land uses, to have them available in the future, and also to do cleanup where it is needed and to overall bring them back into use for where they can make use of the rail spurs and best serve Vermont. In particular, what I want to say is we know there will be demand in the future, we don't want to end up in a situation of having to develop greenfields where we, if we don't need to, if we can plan ahead. With regard to passenger service, we, it is useful, we've heard in Vermont and nationally that if we can support smart land use growth around the Amtrak stations, it's adding value to the land around the Amtrak station, but it's also providing an environment for increased use of the Amtrak services. That's pretty much what I wanted to cover there. We've already talked about educating shippers and receivers. This is a big effort. It involves a lot of money. It takes a lot of partners. It's going to take time. We want to keep people inspired. For this reason, I call this I asked to have developed, and we call this the inspiration map, to think about where we could go over time and through collaboration and continuing to seek funding. We can get back up to Montreal. We can increase service. We can increase freight rail use. We want to keep in mind that, like with the interstate system that passes through Vermont, but also provides opportunity to Vermont businesses and residents at the exits. The rail system passes through and carries people through Vermont, but also provides opportunity at its Amtrak stations and at the transload sites. We want to focus on these connections to maximize the value for Vermont. It's a through system that means that there's more value invested in Vermont's rail system than we could otherwise have, but we also want to bring back the maximize the value of what is coming to Vermont from the system.

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: So I Yes. Very quickly put an extremely minor look, but it's not really you do not have a line from Burlington Outdoors Exjunction on this map. But in fact, that is an accurate Oh,

[Zoe Neaderland (VTrans, Planning)]: I it's in yellow.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: It's very small. It was hard for the graphic designer to show it.

[Zoe Neaderland (VTrans, Planning)]: It's yellow, so it doesn't pop

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: quite in the my screen, it won't show. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Because that's not only has freight implications, but that's tremendous passenger Yep.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Yep. Gotcha. We did a couple of iterations of this map because that was tricky to show. Yeah. But I just wanna say a few words about the freight plan and then draw it together and defer to you whatever people would like to speak about. The 2026 freight plan is far along. We're reviewing the final draft of the plan. It has an attractive executive summary. It is about all the modes of moving actually, could we go back for Because one it's about all the modes of moving freight, including rail freight, trucks, planes that move high value, speed sensitive goods, pipelines, and water. And I just was gonna touch that the Champlain Canal is a 60 mile canal connecting the Hudson River to Lake Champlain that has gone undergone a lot of renovation and is in increasing use. It celebrated its two hundredth anniversary in 2023, and the ferry served the ferry company that serves two of the routes that carry trucks two of the three routes that carry trucks back and forth across Lake Champlain will be celebrating its two hundredth anniversary this year. So I just want to note that these other modes, there are many active modes, and to touch on the goals of the freight plan, they, of course, include achieving and maintaining a state of good repair, safety and resilience, system performance, which includes having the workforce that we need now and in the future. This is a picture of a school group in front of one of the V Train snowplows that they proudly got to name. Increasing freight rail use, so we're carrying forward the recommendations from the rail plan into the freight plan. The freight plan is a more high level policy plan than the rail plan. It carries forward the recommended initiatives at a high level into the freight plan. Efficient regional connections, as we've talked about extensively, and mitigating adverse impacts. And there are ways that we need to have freight coming into Vermont and leaving Vermont and moving around in Vermont, but there are some opportunities to enhance freight's role as a good neighbor. So going on to the next slide, if you're I'm sorry.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Ahead. I just asked about that good neighbor piece, because I'm a big proponent of freight as you heard from the beginning of this conversation, but I also live next to the freight folks because I'm in Downtown White River Junction. Right. And something that has come up significantly in our area is the noise and the consistent kind of interruption at night with very loud noise. Do you have any proposals or recommendations that you look at related to reducing noise? Because I've tried a couple of different angles on this one with noise pollution, and I'm getting nowhere. But it's definitely how do we make these rail lines be good neighbors when that's a main issue and we haven't been able to resolve it.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Would it be appropriate for you me to send you the draft part about this subject in the planning And I welcome your additional thoughts. Yeah. There are a couple of angles that we think might have potential.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, and I think there's a lot of creative solutions that don't make freight more difficult to have in your community or

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: don't like Bringing freight is very important, but maybe there are some and it's a delicate balance. Yeah. Particularly with the rail lines there, but not under the not under local control, but there are cases where there are opportunities. Patents to be aware of what the opportunities are is helpful.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And we've gone down the path, even Dan was on a series of emails with the town of Hartford related to the special noise. Quiet zone. Thank you, quiet zone. And it was difficult to take any next steps due to the cost on the community. So I think long term con conversations about that would be helpful. But Yeah.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Is this signaling or is it the sound of the train that's midnight?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's a bit of both. It's the decoupling and the horns that they have to do every time they decouple or move. There's basically so they don't run some so somebody yeah. It's like yes. It's very safety based, but there are regulations you can put in place that allow a train to not do those is my understanding if they're within a quiet zone. And then the other one is hazardous materials, and people have concerns about they have a hazardous material sign on a freight train that's going by them, they're like, that seems like it could be flammable and dangerous. And it's in it's like resting near my home. So I think those kinds of like, whether it's noise or like visibility of those things, people do have questions. So I liked your framing of a good neighbor in particular, because I've been trying to find the balance of how to have those conversations.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: I want to recognize it's been an issue nationwide and there are reports out on freight as a good neighbor. We didn't coin that that, we took that as a from the industry discussions. There you go. So I'd be happy to follow-up with And would be happy to come back if we are invited, you can speak about the freight plan or the order ID program. I'm volunteering to be on that. And just to wrap it together, some key takeaways if you're just going to remember three things, one of which I know is near and dear to everybody's heart, just that maintenance is essential. Through these two plans, what these two plans really brought home was that an area of opportunity is the interconnection, is the connection points between modes, be it for passengers to reach passenger rails conveniently and safely, and for freight to move among modes, so that each mode can do what it does best and they are interconnected well. That is how we achieve an efficient, effective transportation system. And that is his last point, which is that transportation is a network. A few bullets are on the right side that build on this. This investment in the state of good repair, weight binding, and access to Amtrak stations, preserving and fully using sites with freight rail access, educating about and making translate freight easier and more, but more well known and easier to do. And then finally, these capacity ideas that we discussed: the extension of the Vermonter to Montreal and exploring the Valley Flyer extension and continued engagement with the two corridor ID studies. That is the end of what we would plan to cover, and we welcome your thoughts and questions.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So this is amazing, and thank you so much for being here. I want to give Carl some time because we only have until ten, is that what

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: you said, We've Mr. Got it. Yeah. It's fifteen minutes. Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Yeah. You so much.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So important that people know about this. I really appreciate you.

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: We only until ten?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's all right. I think

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: we only until eleven or maybe I'm just

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We're we're

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: gonna have something else. Oh, oh,

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: Never mind. But at some point do we

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: No. Of course it'll left. Okay. Yeah. Would you so Carl's a member of the

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: yeah. I was asked to come in just to sort of give some perspectives on the rail plan and the first one I have is that I'm extremely pleased with looking for Penny today. So these are exactly the points I was going to make on most of this issue, and I'm I'm very pleased. It's a great update. Collaborate. Lot of work is. So it's my comment is that I've one of kinds of

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Do you wanna come up? Sure.

[Zoe Neaderland (VTrans, Planning)]: Assume I don't need notes. I'm notorious for carrying sock cabinets around with me. And you did state your name, Carl.

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: Yeah. Great. Yeah. I'm Carl Fowler. I reside in Williston. I'm a member of the Milan Rail Advisory Council. I'm retiring from a lifelong career of marketing and promoting pasture rail travel, and I was for many, many years very active in the Rail Passenger Association. And and at the end of my really active period was their vice chairman. I'm still a member, but I backed a little bit off of that also in retirement. But I've been on the rail council for, I think, twenty five years. I was trying to find my original appointment papers. I was on it by 2002. So I've got a perspective from what we've been trying to do up here in Vermont for a very long time. And so what I'm gonna say today is less specific than it was going to be earlier because basically a rail plan is addressing things I was concerned with. But there are some things that I think we all could profit from trying to restructure a bit. The Montreal project in particular, which I've been a passionate advocate for going back to the demise of the original Montrealer, has dragged on to a degree that is almost beyond belief. Our current effort for certainly ten years, and it may have been even longer than that, We had a bus connection for many years, but then Vermont Transit Lines, Greyhound ownership changed and they didn't want to provide the schedule we needed anymore and we lost it. Since then, we've been trying to get the train up there, but we can't get there. It is the definition of a complex project, and I realize that. Transportation departments of Quebec and Vermont and New York, Federal Department of Transportation, the Ministry of Defense Sport in Canada, the Canadian National Railway, the new commuter rail service in Montreal, which suddenly ended up owning Central Station. Its complexity boggles the mind, but at the same time, there has been, I think, on both sides, a sort of passive reason to say, well, just we can't get there now. It'll be another two years, another three years. As long as the goal remains kickable down the road, as long as the goal goals keep changing, no one's going to feel any pressure to actually accomplish this project. I absolutely do not think it should be abandoned, but I would suggest that we consider putting it in a sense on probation. If by, for example, the end of fiscal year twenty twenty seven, we haven't been able to show that we have a plan for the necessary track work or we have an agreed upon design for the customs facility in Central Station, we need to look at some other projects we could accomplish in the shorter term. Without saying never gone real, but coming up with maybe even you wanna call it a band aid, a band aid. I call it positive multimodality. Supporting the reestablishment of the St. Almonds or even Burlington to Montreal bus connection that we formerly had. I was looking a few minutes ago at Greyhound Lines and they have gone back up to three trips a day from Burlington to Montreal, one of which in the evening would require about a two hour schedule change to connect to the train, but that might be possible if they were willing to work with us on it. If not, chartering with us is expensive but not insane if you take into account that the cost, number one, would be partially offset by fares and number two, and more importantly, by the addition of long distance riders to the Vermonter who would be likely to contribute considerably more to our pot there. I was thrilled to see a 78% cost recovery. I mean, that's really outstanding. There are not that many state operated trains in the company that can say that. So that's one example. Another would be to look at what other options indeed might be possible. Not only, obviously, fixing the Burlington Essex branch, but if we did do that, is there a more productive way to use that capacity than just trying to put together a cross platform transfer someday at Essex Junction to get people on the Ethan Allen route to Montreal? And let me just suggest something that's fairly radical, but what if, for example, after completing that work and a lot of it's been done by the Midland Central for their own benefit. That's not a Vermont online. That belongs to the Midland Central Railroad, and they have been aggressive in getting grants to help fix it. But what in fact can we fix that? We rerouted the Ethan Allen Express to Barry Montpelier rather than terminating Burlington and switched in the long term the Vermonter into doing something different as well. Montreal, obviously. But or what what if we rooted the Vermonter to start in Barry Montpelier in the morning and sent the East down to Saint Albans? That's preserved. There is already a service facility there. Your question about what would it cost to bring up the Valley Flyer Trains? There will need to be money spent to build a servicing facility either in Gravel Road or White River Junction. They have to be able to fuel the train. They have people to pump sewage out. They have to be able to clean the train. So it's not there's not no cost to doing that, but it isn't staggered. But, you know, we're gonna we're we're looking at it in the plan we just saw a moment ago, working to upgrade the tracks that are just across the street here practically to 286,000 pound capacity. If you do that, a passenger train can run at 45 to 50,000 hour on the line, and we would be able to produce an internal service for the benefit of the state of Vermont that could also reach out nationally. If, again, we sent the Vermonter down to Burlington and the Ethan Allen to St. Albans, both towns would retain their services. But the Vermonter would start here in the morning and it would actually allow people to come into Burlington, Middlebury, and Mount Pleer for the day potentially, depending on how the scale it's worked out. It's just a thought. It's a brainstorm. But there's got to be something we can do that will shape loose the Montreal project, and my most important suggestion is put some accomplishable goal dates on it that would trigger other actions by us if we can't get it to move. We know there are problems between The US and Canada at the moment. We know those problems are likely to last for a while. If in truth, realistically, we can't expect to see that train running in three years, I'm crushed. The track work that needs

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: to be

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: done is marginal. It's just under nine miles from the Vermont border to the junction with the Adirondack route in Canada at a place called Caddock, Quebec. That would be one summer of track and tie work for a railroad company to bring in welded rails and ballast. There's a drawbridge over the Richland River. That's the biggie. We probably have to automate that drawbridge to satisfy the immigration services that both countries need for the train to be effectively sealed from Montreal to St. Almonds. But that's not an incredibly complex project. We've done similar work. We don't have to actually do 60 miles of track over because the Adirondack is running on it already. Not at ideal speeds, 30 to 50 miles an hour, but it's running on it. It's running reliably. Indeed, it's frequently arriving in Montreal half an hour to forty five minutes early, suggesting the track conditions are actually much better than we might realize. So do we know what that project would cost? I don't know. Asked Dan. Dan, do we finally have any suggestion from CN as to what they might want between the border and mechanic? Have they ever come through and talk to us about that?

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: This is a much longer discussion and Carl is missing a bunch of points on what steps that need to be done here. Oh, I'm not

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: saying those are the only ones. Not at all. But I'm suggesting we divide this up what I call a multi track approach. That we have a project group looking at that issue, which definitely has to be addressed. Do we have a project group looking at central station? We probably do. But do they have deadlines they're working to?

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: If they don't, after all these years, why are doing this? We do not control the government in Canada. True. We do not control Transport Quebec. We do not control the owners of the station in Montreal. We are working with them monthly on a monthly call and we are making progress. I'm gonna stop there.

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: And I won't ask you for more, but I will tell you again. If we can't get to the conclusion after ten years, what can we do to try to shake it loose? They're just not gonna work with us.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: They are working with us. Yeah.

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: They're working with us. Why is it still more than three years away, dad?

[Dave Pelletier (VTrans, Planning)]: And this is a longer conversation. It's longer conversation.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But I just wanted this committee to hear other thoughts. Yeah. Yeah.

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: In the shorter term, we could provide that bus again. Could we do what

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: the Adirondack does and stop the border and then go on?

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: Absolutely. That is another possibility. Although, unfortunately, the customs facility they're building up there is over at Grouses Point, which we can't reach, at least not rationally. But yes, of course

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: we could. But we'd have to have some kind of facility at

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: the border where you stop. The Montreal Cousins facility in Central Station Right. That's the ultimate Right. Produces a great psychological benefit because the schedule of the train would instantly be accelerated by between sixty and ninety minutes. You wouldn't have to sit at the border doing customs. Of course, at the end of the day though, if customs is being conducted in Central Station Of Montreal, that time will still be eaten. It's just where does it get eaten? And psychologically, it's good to make the train look faster. The truth is, in the world we live in now, we're not gonna eliminate and go back to, like, the car waving it through the border. It's gonna be a serious inspection. I'm not against the facility, but you just did suggest something is a possibility we haven't looked at for a few years. Would it be possible to come into Connecticut back up a mile or so to the existing facility, conduct the clearance and proceed on? The one benefit of conducting the immigration naturalization facilities at the border is that local traffic then becomes possible again in the province of Quebec, and maybe that might get them more interested in the project if, for example, Saint John Sarveshluk could be put on the route. We pass through it, we can't stop. I don't know. But my point is not that Dan is wrong about all the complexity of this. God, it's mind numbing, And yet at the end of the day, it's build a facility in centralization, negotiate access to the tract, do the repairs needed from kayak to the border, and run a train. And if we can't make those pieces go together, then we do need to have options, and I don't want to abandon Montreal, but if the truth is we have to wait till 2028 before everybody's gonna really move with some kind of alacrity on this, then what could we do in the interim that might move it forward? And there's a couple of other examples too that I know Wendy's interested in. Other butt rail coordination. It always comes down to the fact the train might be running late one day and then we'd have to wait for it. And the fix for that is possibly Uber or Lyft, if they exist in a town, or it's trying to find a taxi or limo service that would agree to a contract providing service only on days when there was a passenger expected. For decades, Amtrak provided a Westport New York to Lake Plastic bus connection, which only ran if there were passengers who wanted to go to Lake Placid. It had to book in advance and had to be paid for in advance. If there was nobody who wanted to go, it didn't run. It was basically a guy over at Lake Placid, a limo service, and would come over and meet the train if there was ridership. Have we looked at that kind of thing to get some more integration with our existing services? We're doing it already with the Vermont Transline buses. They take Amtrak tickets. They go to the Amtrak station in Albany. They are at least in part coordinated, although ironically the only stop North Of Albany that's in common is through Jets. But we're already sort of doing that. We could go from Rutland to Ludlow for Okimo skiing. We could go from Fellows Falls to Ludlow for Okimo skiing. Those are ideas that don't take the kind of investment and money that some of these issues we look at regional service opportunities that could be partially bus, partially rail? Could we call a summit with the bus operators in this state whose services are at least in part subsidized by V Trans and get both sides to sit down and really see if there's a way to work out this connectivity problem. Now, and the bus services are starting to unravel. They may be more interested in some support than they were a few years ago. I moved to Williston in 2012, and I looked immediately at how would I get up to the station that has extension five trains. And the answer was in the morning, there was a bus, the number 10, that would have taken me from a block from my house right to the door. But in the evening, it quit running at six, and I couldn't get home. Now that bus has died, it's gone. That route is one the ones that Green Mountain Transit suspended indefinitely.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: But it still wouldn't have helped

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: me because it couldn't get there. But I can Uber it, I can taxi it, but limited taxi services left. Why can't we look at more of that kind of stuff? I want to see us moving on priorities we can accomplish, and maybe there are some things here that we can. And I think with that, I do not mean to be critical of VTrans. VTrans has proven more than almost any other state in the country that they can get these projects done and get them done in a professional way, and get them done with impeccable quality of work. But we don't still have much beyond the core of the two routes we've always been looking at. It's eight miles basically from Downtown Burlington to Essex Junction. If you get there, there's lots of things you could do with the trains. It's a little bit only from the border's panic. If we could just get that piece patched in, maybe we would see the Canadians would see the need to move faster. If they won't complete the studies in Montreal, I absolutely agree with you that we could look at, is it possible to do it as we used to at the border? Now, let me help Montreal or Hamilton in latter years. There was a taxi provided to pick up U. Or Canadian customs officers, and they rode the train between Connecticut and St. Albans. I know both agencies said they won't do that again, but if the problem was needing to taxi somebody from Rouses Point over to the border interview passengers on the Vermada. Could we do that better than buying an old crane? Thank you. With that, I'll let you guys go. I appreciate you very much the opportunity to speak. I offer you to call me if you need something. I do have a small gift from the Advocates for Pastor Real

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: at the moment in the form of a souvenir plan. Dan, did you wanna say anything that would be

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: Do you want me to?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, if you wanna wrap up, I'll grab the stuff for

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: you. Sure. I guess I'll just add a bit of an update on the Montreal side, which I believe, for the record, DeLiberio and Etrans, We are making progress in Montreal. I understand the frustration from everybody who's not at the table with me monthly. I get it. It seems like it's not moving. I can assure you it's moving. I have so many balls in the air with this project that I can't really tell you a little bit about each ball, but this includes Amphenate. It includes New York. It includes the owners of the station in Montreal. That station project is three blocks deep. We are underground for three blocks. It's complicated, but we're moving. Customs and border protection on both sides of the border have said to me they will not service our train at the border. We cannot go and just do what we used to do or do what the Adirondack is doing. They don't wanna do what the Adirondack is doing right now. That's why they're building a facility there. We we don't have that option on the Vermonter. We can't just start running it and have they won't do it. So that is not an option, I guess, without some change in political pressure, and we'd see need to make it happen. And who knows if we can get the Canadian side to do it. I don't know. I feel like we are making progress, and I and I can't talk about some of the stuff because there is some stuff at the station right now that is not I'm not gonna say it's not public. It's public. People know we're trying to come there, but the plans are not public, and it affect people at that station. And that's all I'm gonna say, and it's not out there, and there's a reason why it's not out there. Because it's not a defined plan yet. It's it's in the concept phase. It needs to go from the concept phase from where we are right now to the actual engineering documents. That is the step we are working on right now.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: The engineering?

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: That is literally where we are. Okay. The Province of Quebec had agreed to pay for the next step. For whatever reason, call it whatever, I don't know if it was political or not, that funding disappeared. New York and Vermont have decided to advance. We had the opportunity to take on the next step, and we are going to do that. That is literally where we are right now. So this project is very alive and well. Do you still have, what's his name you've been working on, the one you had a contract with? I his don't know who,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: name that He I

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: to be the Commissioner of BGS and who are you? Oh, Brian Searles. Brian Searles passed away. He was a great advocate, yeah. He knew a lot of people only. Yeah, and wasn't he kind of like He was helping, yeah, no, he was He passed away, sorry to hear you. Yeah, he was pulling together a lot of the political folks in Montreal We for have that. That's still occurring, and I'm in those meetings. Is there a connection with also with our Montreal International Business Development Effort office? We also are connected here a little bit with our agency of commerce, they are in the loop with what we're doing. They are the person over there to make this connection, especially if they are involved. They are involved. Again, I understand we're not there. I get it. And it's taken forever. And it is a big nut to crack. There are so many pieces here. You've got customs and border protection of both sides. HS doesn't control them. We are we we are working with them. We are getting what they need into the plan in Montreal, which getting those two to agree on a combined use customs facility. I'm going this way, your passengers are going that way, and we're gonna clear them. Imagine that complication in building a facility that meets both countries' needs. Yeah. I mean, that is just one engineering hurdle that we're getting over. Anyway, long story short, chair. It is moving. It is not three years. Is it

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: two? I

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: would like to be able to come in here in the next couple of years with a set of plans to show you on what the next step is for Montreal. But until those are publicly available, they're not out there. It's in another country, and you guys got to imagine how complicated that is.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, late COVID.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: I think anybody who's

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: been on this trip

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: for taking bird lines, whether Westman understands that I can assure you we're making progress though, we are. Will you notify us when we're three years away?

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: Uh-huh. Sure. Okay. That'd be great.

[Dan Delabruere (VTrans Rail Director)]: I wanna get this done. I don't know how much time I'm Right? I wanna retire at some someday. My wife tells me I need to. So my goal is let's get it done. I've been working on this thing for fifteen years.

[Carl Fowler (Vermont Rail Advisory Council member)]: Wow. Thank you. Thank you.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Thank you.