NOTES ON AN OLD TIMETABLE.

Today in visionary transportation thinking?

Take the train to Montreal? It could happen. The Bangor Daily News reported that there could be a train that goes from Montreal to Boston if they get the money for it. It would go from Montreal to Sherbrooke (in Quebec) and then cross over into Vermont. Then it heads into New Hampshire and will go through Bethel, Auburn, Portland, and Old Orchard Beach. Then off to Boston.

It would take 14 hours and it's an overnight train where you would have dinner and be entertained. If you don't want to drive, what a great option. One way would cost around $212, but that also includes overnight accommodations.  It's cheaper than flying according to the Montreal Gazette. But as they pointed out, it's the comfort of not having to drive.

It's a long time in the making. If they do get the money and backing, the first leg would go between Montreal and Sherbrooke and that alone would cost $100 million.

It's being touted as a train from Montreal to Boston, but the stops in Maine would be popular too! What Canadian can resist Old Orchard Beach which already has a train station near the water? According to WMUR this is not on a fast track. It would be at least two years before this becomes a reality, and that's being optimistic.

Inevitably, it takes longer and is wicked expensive to put back that which you once had.  As late as the summer of 1954, the Grand Trunk Railroad (meaning Canadian National's lines in New England; the Grand Trunk Western was the Lake Huron to Chicago with a carferry to Milwaukee) laid on an all-stops franchise train that left Montreal or Portland at 8 a.m. and reached its destination at just past six in the evening.  In those days, the Boston and Maine, still running passenger trains in the grand manner, offered two-hour timings onward to Portland, although the fastest of those trains did not call at Old Orchard Beach.

As late as the mid-1930s, Grand Trunk and Boston and Maine cooperated on a weekends-only, overnight service with sleeping cars linking Montreal with Old Orchard Beach, still the Quebec Riviera.

After what we thought was "progress" turned out not to be (I did not envy motorists looking for places to park at the beach, the bid-rent curve was as steep as the Fed's recent balance sheet activity) we'll end up replacing a lot of the stuff that worked, and spending a lot more for a replacement that won't be as good.  I should be grateful nobody is dreaming of a French style high-speed line through the Presidential Range.