 Thanks for joining us here at the Vermont Rail Action Network reception. My name is Brad Worthen. I'm the vice chair of the organization and it's a pleasure to see you. I see another number of our lawmakers here and supporters of our organization. The Vermont Rail Action Network is comprised of 2,500 members statewide and we're an advocacy group for both freight and passenger rail services throughout the state and we've been around for a couple decades. We had the great fortune of running into our hiring our new executive director over here, Christine Bacaro. Christine, stand up and say hello. We're very fortunate to have her talent on board and you'll see more of Christine as we go through our program and we're also doing our planning for our annual dinner coming up in November and we look forward to having that. This year we're going to have it right here, right? I think that's the plan. Somewhere we haven't picked a date yet but we'll have it in my affiliate. So if any of you know who I am, I know a little bit about railroads but I learned a new fact through the day that I was pretty excited about and it's right over here, 85 percent of all of us, all of our monitors live within one mile of a rail which is outstanding and that's why we don't need another study in the legislature to tell us what we need to do. We don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars for some consultant out of state to tell us that we need to spend 165 million dollars on rail equipment. When the gentleman I'm going to introduce to you next spent about four percent of that number and has a rolling stock of absolutely beautiful restored fully functional bond cars ready to go and start serving those 85 percent. You know part of our culture here in Vermont as it was throughout the nation has been we don't need railroads, we need more roads and we're behind the curve on a global level but we're slowly coming back. If you look across the country you will see a number of municipalities that have now realized that rail infrastructure transportation is an important part of our economy and our growing populations to accommodate movement of those populations. David Blitterstorff is not only well known in the energy field but several years ago we decided he was going to take things into his own hands and grab these bond cars while he could bring them to Vermont and use them on our railroads. The challenge that we have is getting the cooperation of all the railroads. I'll remind everyone in the room that over the past decade we have spent over a hundred million dollars on improving our infrastructure rail infrastructure here in the state. Now that's been a private the railroads contributing the state and the feds contributing to make that happen. We are this close to completing what needs to be done on the infrastructure between Burlington and Rotland so that we can get Amtrak to Union Station and Burlington and perhaps six and a half hours later Penn Station arriving Penn Station in New York it can happen. We've done an enormous amount of improvement out here on our central Vermont line and if any of you have taken Amtrak the Vermonter lately to point south I did they had the chance of doing the day and I was surprised that because of the improvements in the crossings and signaling we were doing 79 miles an hour that ain't bad that's pretty exciting. Anyway we want to make sure that everybody in the room gets a chance to understand what David's doing what we're doing as an organization if you haven't had a chance to join we're online you're welcome to join us become become one of the 2,500 members and be a part of our organization. So without further ado the gentleman who has opened his wallet so that we can all enjoy public transportation would you please welcome David Blitterstorff. David. Well thank you thanks for coming and you know I got into this really not knowing what I was doing. I'm not a railroader I grew up with the model trains and that's the closest I ever really got to trains and went into this trying to do something different in Vermont. It was frustrating to see as we look at climate change the CO2 crisis energy oil all these things that are happening that we weren't making any progress in the state and the data shows that transportation is a huge huge emitter of carbon dioxide it's where we put use most of our oil that's imported and I want to do something about it after decades of working in the wind and solar fields ever since I was a 12 year old I knew something was wrong with this finite fossil fuel era we're living in and now we're the recipients of what's wrong. We know what we have to do and we're going to have to do it so I did go out and buy these cars and because it's technology that I think works it's the Vermont way you know it's on the cheap it's not gold plated but they're beautiful cars and if I'm not successful I'll be living in a cardboard box under one of these bridges. When I built my first wind farm up in Milton it was like six years ago I had the same moment that I thought that maybe I was going to be in a cardboard box under a bridge because things were so tight time wise and it was a calculated risk to get that built in time before tax credits ended and things changed but it's the same sort of thing that you know everybody in this room I'm glad you're here you are the leaders to make this work and by having the hardware here I'm just a hardware company I'm not going to be operating these we need the state we need others we need legislators helping us push to do what we want to do but the very first thing that we are probably going to do is get the line between Montpelier and Berry up and running it's not going to cost 10 15 20 million dollars to do it we're going to do it by just replacing the ties ballast straightening the rails and getting that up to 30 mile per hour line it's a 10 mile per hour line right now 30 miles an hour our blood cars will go back and forth between Berry and Montpelier faster than you can drive that same route and you won't have to park and you won't have all those other problems so that's our first goal we got to get something running to show that this will work and so that's why I'm in this right now at some point I can't wait forever for the state and others to come on board so we're pushing if I have to wait more than maybe another year I'm probably going to lease these cars other places but I am not going to sell these because these are unique hardware in the world that you cannot find anywhere we have the best hardware anybody else for this type of service these self-powered blood cars so I'm going to keep them and I want them to run a Vermont I'm a Vermonter I want this to work and I think we can make it work you know Vermont has led on so many things this is another one that we're leading on you know almost every week I get an email or Charlie gets a call I get a call said hey what are you doing in Vermont we understand your vision we want to do it in Calgary we want to do it in Boston the MBTA that used to be the owner of these cars when they originally ran in the 50s they want them back so something interesting is happening we are stimulating a new vision and I call it back to the future because it's what we used to do and now we're going to go back to it and I don't believe the automobile is going to save us I don't care if it's electric I don't care if it's self-driving we must have transit like rail integrated with bus integrated with short haul vans walking we have to go back to that in one last thing as I sort of rant and rave here is I believe one of the things that Vermont needs to do is revitalize its communities and the rail station was central to a community in the past we need to keep elementary schools in the community we need to have the rail station community that's how we're going to live again in the future not scattered all across the mountains in the hither lands because that doesn't work on an energy perspective and a carbon perspective and it's not the best way to live so that's where we're going thank you thank you David our next presenter is no stranger to railroading here in the state of Vermont Charlie Moore who is the general manager for for a David's company all rail Charlie is a resident of St. Albans and had his illustrious career through many levels of railroading to end up as the executive or general manager of the New England Central Railroad vice president status and also at the same time running seven short lines so we couldn't find a better person to head up this project with with David Charlie come on down wow this is great we sure appreciate everybody's support we have to thank Joe Flynn and the agency of transportation for their support the Senate and transportation committees for learning about us willing to believe in us and to get us on the transportation bill for a technical analysis is very much appreciated this is a great opportunity for the state of Vermont and I hope that if there's one thing we accomplished when everybody leaves this room that they can see value in in what we want to what we want to do I think David really cared for everything but I've been in the railroad business for way too long probably some people would say and I was so honored when David Blitter store passed me to join him as president of all earth rail to manage this commuter rail service and as David says you know we're going to do it the Vermont way that doesn't mean we're going to do it on the cheap but we're going to make it very good and desirable to all of all the Vermonters I'm also on the board of Vermont Rail Action Network and I sat on the governor's rail council and I have to be president of our great museum and in St. Albans we have a total of 12 budcars two in St. Albans and 10 in Berry that are as David said our pristine they're beautiful you can see some of the pictures on the slides here they can run 85 miles an hour but we'll operate at 59 here in the state of Vermont and only requires one individual an engineer to operate them versus a train where it would require two to three we want to take you for a ride we want you to enjoy so visit us and bury so we can show you the cars and and let us let us show off thank you so much appreciate it thank you Charlie it's great to have you working on this project the chairperson of the Vermont Rail Action Network is Lee Khan she's no stranger to our group at all Lee is the I like to call her the Energizer Bunny when it comes to pushing our organization getting things accomplished researching digging in and finding facts that are just unbelievable such as the 85% within one mile of rail but least on an enormous amount of research when it comes to the capacity of our railroads and our particularly freight and how we can enhance our whole freight usage here within the state of Vermont so without further ado Lee thank you first of all David Blitterstorf you're crazy and we love you what can you say you know you know what's happening in in many communities right now is that impact investors are surfacing to make a substantial difference in life and the environment and the economy along when it comes to rail and David stepped out there and we work closely during the bid process and won the cars from dark perfectly beautifully maintained cars from the Dallas area rapid transit and I will never forget the day where all of a sudden he said we won and we're like what do we need now you know to say that we're still making the stuff as we go along is true okay we're just beyond this with you and and what a blessing you are so that thank you I also want to know did anybody in here buy a ticket to the VRan dinner and then we canceled it raise your hand if you did God bless you guys I love you thank you let me tell you why we canceled it we've been flirting with Secretary chow chow come up and be our dinner speaker and we just couldn't get a date pulled together with her but tomorrow senator lady is meeting with her personally to ask her to come up so fingers crossed we hope that she will be our dinner speaker and that will have something on the books relatively soon I want to pick up on something that Brad said earlier and walk you take a look at this map a little bit later on you know Vermont spent a hundred million dollars in the last decade on its rail infrastructure and again this is one of those places where both the environment and the economy align and one of the projects that that we feel very committed to is that it's time to connect people and freight to that investment and we have not capitalized on that investment and it's time to do it so we can move people with the cars but we also do a lot of work on freight and this is a project that the Vermont Rail Action Network undertook a couple of years ago and we're constantly updating and working on it these are rail adjacent properties and these rail adjacent properties went through a filter system and then we pull together an entire database working with the railroads working with CLF saying what would you like for us to eliminate from the filter CLS said this is a great idea why don't you eliminate Primag and wetlands so the first filter process was primag and wetlands the second filter process was topography related to what the railroads requested and the third one was parcel size so this is a listing of marketable properties that are adjacent to railroads that we could attract businesses to the state of Vermont to use the very stock footprint of rail for freight so it's time to connect those things and this is a project I'd be glad to share with anybody come over and ask me afterwards and I'll walk through what we're doing and why we think this is such a great idea so we do have a few minutes for questions if anybody would like to ask any one of our speakers any questions we will bring them back up and yes ma'am I am a new owner of the Orpillage school in Wells River and if anyone is familiar with Wells River there is an active rail road freight going through that adjacent to it daily and since no one in the area wants to do anything with the old school which is a magnificent building I feel so dedicated to rail that I would be willing to donate the school and it is crossroad has always been a crossroad and judging by the number of cars that go through there on the day basis there there could be a demand. Sure. We'll take it. We'll do the paperwork before you leave. Thank you. Brad, Brad, would you repeat what's next? Sure. This lady has ownership to the Wells River library. It's great. It's great. It's adjacent to the tracks on the old boss of the main line and which is now remote rail system and she has graciously said this could be an important part of our community and rail transportation and she is going to donate. She's willing to donate. She's willing to donate. Please write a sign her up. I would tell you that. I'm a licensed rail driver we can make that happen. It's got to be an attorney in the room. That's very nice of you and you know we have been working on that as an organization to not only enhance our infrastructure along rail but our stations as well and we know that there's a number of our intract stocks that need a lot of work. This is wonderful. This would make a lovely depot you could even have a hotel in there. We love it. We love it. It's a great idea. Thank you. A conscious handle. A conscious handle. Microphone for Carl. All right. Here he says it's free. I'm going to reinforce the ladies comment. The last passenger train to serve Wells River was the Alouette and the Alouette was a bug car train. It was from White River Junction up to Montreal via Newport and St. John'sbury and even the paralleling bus services up there have now collapsed. So that idea may be much more interesting when I think of what we have the full books in the country. Thank you Carl. More questions please. Any new updates on the progress along the Middlebury Burlington line. Okay. You may want to talk to that. Anybody. Nobody here from Vermont rail. Yes sir. Two years. Two more years. Two more years. And the reason it's taken two years instead of actually starting this summer are the two tunnels in. He's an authority. The chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Thank you. Any other questions. Here. Right here. Al. You can project. I'm going to hold a microphone for you. What's the training. What's this organization connected with getting our station. Carl told me is do some renovations. But it is the highest volume station for the strength and your relationship to that station. I attended. Very good. Yes. The question is when are we going to expect to get improved facility at the Asics Junction Amtrak station. Now is the station master. That's a good question. We have perhaps someone here from VTrans. They might be able to help us out. But I will tell you that. I can tell you. Okay. Great Morgan from Asics. So there's a proposal that Asics has developed with the Asics and County Regional Planning Commission to redo that station. I'd like to call it. It looks like a bunker from the 1950s from Brooklyn. Anyway, there's a proposal to do it. It's a $1.2 million project. And at this point the village doesn't have in the town don't have the money. And the question is where will that come from. So the work has been done to develop the idea. And the concept. We have 23 seats in the station. We have 200 college kids going home. Isn't that the most popular station in the state? It's the highest volume station. We're number one in the second either Brooklyn or Brattleboro. You've got more seats than Brattleboro. Oh, it's awful. Sorry. So there's a lot of work to be done. But that's what this group is about. That's what VRAN is about. That's what this meeting is about. It's the share ideas. What lies ahead with great visions such as David has and how we can advocate as an organization to make things happen. Just a quick piece of history. You know, let's see. A dozen years ago when they were going to pull the Ethan Allen from service. It's this organization that rallied the constituents and the rail advocates in the state that prevented the administration. I like Jim Douglas, but that's one thing you want to do. Because chair that and stop that route. And it's this organization that prevented that from happening. That's the power we have as an organization statewide. That's where we're having these sessions here. And while we'll have a great annual dinner as well. Yes, sir. I'm Steve Gross from Middlebury. And I want to thank the organization had not been for your efforts. I wouldn't have been able to actually communicate for 18 and a half years from our home in Middlebury to my work in Philadelphia. So that hats off to you. I don't know why it's turned out that in Middlebury it seems we will not have a station, but we'll have a platform. The station that I used all those years for the most part was in Castleton, which is one of the most beautiful small stations probably in the world. I would defend it. And the folks who run it, Mary Ann and Val, which is true of dear France. I don't see and I don't know how it happened that we did not begin the station in Middlebury. I think we regret it because anybody who's been dropped off in the middle of winter and there's a rise out there. So any information bearing that, I would appreciate knowing. We would love to be very supportive of any initiative to get a station there. I think Deb's got a little bit of work on that, haven't you? Deb's also on our board. You want to say... Hi everybody. Thank you for coming. It's very exciting to hear and feel all this energy in the room for rail advocacy. One of the projects that VRAM has is a station host program, which is really welcoming people to Vermont, welcoming people to communities. And raising our, you know, raising the bridge, raising our train places for our stations for community and for upcoming service and also existing service. So I think it's really exciting and if you want to get involved in something like that at the community level, there's a lot of stations that could be used to help. And we'd like to hear about that. We'd be delighted to help you get a station there. We'd be delighted. I'm Bill McDonough from Woodstock. Three quick questions. We're going back to Montreal. Have we intended to negotiate with Amtrak to use dual power to avoid the half an hour that Lewis Chandy ends in New Haven? And have we considered using these blood cards to connect with Amtrak to service the south of Springfield? Would you like to tackle that? Okay, yes. The blood cards would be the perfect connection to the new service coming into Massachusetts. And they could operate under the Amtrak contract on the hopes around low degrees. So, yes, that's the consideration. I think it's a really wise idea and a great breeze with the blood cards. Wouldn't it be a lot of expenses to use those? Yes, it would. You know, these cars are individually motorized, right? As most of you know them. They don't need locomotives. They don't need the staff that the Amtrak trains have. They can operate substantially cheaper than Amtrak and operate by Amtrak with the same safety standard under the hosted contract agreement contract. And it's a great idea and that's one of the things that we're pursuing. And then to use like the Bud SPB 2000 was supposed to be used? You went way over my head on that one. For those of you who don't know, about 25 years ago the Bud company came out with a successor to the RDC. They called it the SPB 2000. It was supposed to be used, I guess, additionally from Springfield, New Haven, and it would couple up to the back of a train that came in from Boston so people would have a one-seat ride from the points on the Springfield line north of New Haven without having to go to the expense of running a separate train from New Haven to New York. It's not a great idea but somehow the SPB never cut the message. Maybe Carl knows why. Carl probably does. Carl knows every day. You don't need to. Yeah. Sell them powered vehicles 2000. Yeah. They work fast and engineered and fresh and they can pull it. So, let's go back to Montreal. The pre-clearance issues evidently have been resolved. Brian Searles is the former secretary of transportation. That is the governor's liaison to Canada. He's in Montreal and he's meeting with them next week. And he's really optimistic that we have worked out almost all of the major issues related to going back to Montreal. Within a year. You know... Come on, ten years. I don't know. You're only allowed to work with us. In Montreal. The old CVCN agreement with the crew was equalization of mileage between say Alvin's and Kenting. So I don't know if the CN crew is going to wave it off and let our crews go through Montreal. I don't know how that will work. Right. The treaty, we signed a treaty with Canada in order to be able to do clearance issues in Montreal and not on the south of the border. But I don't know about how the crew... The crew, right. And also we heard that one of the crew members has to be able to speak French. Because of being in Quebec. I don't know if that's the crew or what. We should make that happen. That's a big problem we got. We've got to solve it. Anybody else? One more question. Yes, sir. Hold on. My name is Joel Cope. I'm the administrator in the town of Brighton and Island Park. Which is a home of the first international railroad, the St. Lawrence Atlantic. We're the midpoint on that point and we have a beautiful restored trade station. And anybody is welcome to come up and take a look at it. I'm just talking about station. Just wanted to say come see us. Thank you. Very nice of you. Anybody else? I was just wondering... Greg, I'm going to go in to Barlington. I was just wondering whether... Well, what is the subsidization by the state of Vermont to our two trains... And is it ever... Is it in jeopardy to an extension? I'm going to put that back to the House of Chair. That was really good, Brad. Thank you. What is the current status of funding for Amtrak? Who's paying for it, I believe? And is it in jeopardy to services we have here in Vermont? And probably elsewhere in the country. What's the state funding? I think... The state funding is $8 million. Both trains. I don't believe that's in jeopardy. I heard it. And nobody is talking about that. That I know of. We're from the state house. And as far as Amtrak, there's others that could be more current than what Amtrak is saying. I guess I think it's an opportunity to mention that we first created the Ethanol Express because there's a lot of reasons why stars lined up, and one of those stars was that Amtrak was announcing a 21% nationwide cut in trains. And we were definitely on our train. Our one train, the one we drove at the time, was on the block. And so we made lemonade out of lemons, which was saved in Montreal, the Vancouver Monter, not going to Montreal. And then we created Ethanol Express at the same time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also, while I have a moment, I want to just... I know I haven't recognized all the legislators in the room, the lawmakers, but thank you very much for being here. And I appreciate your support of rail and rail activities throughout the state. In your new position, I know that you've been a great advocate for all things rail, as well as your other duties as chairman of the House Transit. But we recognize as a V-RAN organization your efforts, and thank you very much for promoting rail. Very nice to see you. Okay, one more question. I'm sorry, just ladies, and I'll take that one, and then we're going to step up to the bar. Hi, I'm Caroline. How do I show this? I'm Caroline Bates, Burlington, Vermont. I used to ride in my grandpa's private car from St. Louis to Texas. Nice. But anyway, it was some... It was a better crew seat. I won't drive anywhere. But I wanted to know how we, as individual people, can rally and grow out and put some hands, some boots to the floor or to the ground and build some of these places or clean them up and get some people, local people, to organize and keep supporting some of the things you're doing as opposed to just a lot of talk with a lot of people, but it doesn't sound there's some... I got the question, and it's a good one. Leah, I'm going to put it back to you because you can speak eloquently about the station situations. You know, how many of you guys have been to the Brattleboro station? Welcome to Vermont. That's what we want in Vermont. I mean, it smells bad, but water drains into the station. It's not handicapped, accessible. There's in the bathroom, you know? It's just not what you want when you want it. That is the station where people coming from, tourists come in and get off the train, and it's time to turn that around. We've been down there two or three times. We know that there's momentum. We know that there's funding sources that are looking at that. We couldn't even find out who had the lease on the station. Does anybody know that? We couldn't even find out who leased the station. Did we ever figure that out? We never did. There's no leases underneath this platform. The town owns the station. It's leased to the building. It's leased to the museum. But Ampac is looking at ADA improvements, so I think we're getting on a good track. Yeah, and we can add pressure to that cause. Because that shouldn't be welcomed to Vermont. Well, they have to do the ADA improvements. And then the town has to do the ADA improvements to the station. So it's in process. Right, and we're trying to get the cars. We're trying to get the cars not to park down there too and to have a sign. Because that's not safe having vehicles turning around while the train is coming in. You know, safety is so important to all of us. As a matter of fact, Christine has just gone through the Operation Lifesaver training program. It is now our first registered teacher for that. So Operation Lifesaver is also really important to us. Other stations like, you know, Middlebury, we'd like to be able to help you with that. You know, Essex. We know that what you're trying to do in Essex is... If you have a unisex bathroom, we have people see CCT-8s on the railroad avenue side, and that street is owned by the railroad. Yeah. And they want them to use that. Yeah, it's time to clean this mess up. There we go. Fred. Fred's the last one. Fred? Hello, I'm Fred Bailey. I'm from over in this field in Hampshire. I'm real interested in Monterey Road for many, many reasons. But anyways, I want to comment on the latest on Amtrak's funding. I just barely, within the last week, received the May issue of Trains Magazine, and there's a feature article in there that says the federal government has approved funding for the national system of Amtrak, but more importantly for Vermont, over $50 million has been approved because Mr. Anderson, the president of Amtrak, threatened to shut down the Vermont area and to down Easter because we do not and will not have PTC up here. Vermont and safety features in the railroad industry. But anyways, the federal government approved at least $50 million to protect the Vermont and the down Easter in case Amtrak insists on having PTC or similar systems in the lines that now are the least valued in the country as far as the stretching goes. Positive train controls. Positive train control. Senator Lay, he put the $50 million in to save that into the Amtrak budget. So next time you see him, you thank him dearly for all that he does for us. Yeah. And also, we have money to take here of a very serious rock situation in Vermont which derailed the Vermont several years ago. They've taken care of the very serious treaty situation along the way with central school projects that are being made safety-wise. And I'm a former railroad safety officer. I'm very concerned about safety in the state of Vermont. I could go on for half an hour, but I won't. Thank you. Thank you all for being here today. Rather than answer your question, ma'am, not specifically about trains in stations and improvement, but you have to look at the short history in which we have been an advocacy group, the short history in which trains have become important again in our transportation scenario. Again, as little as 50 years ago, we were still ripping all this stuff up. 20 years ago, we were still in the Mile Valley Railroad, tore it up. But that whole tide has changed. It's like turning a ship. It takes forever to get people's mindset to move around, to get chairman in place that understand the need for alternative transportation across a wide swat of transportation opportunities for all the mutters in our region. So while it doesn't look like we're making much progress, I can tell you from being an advocate myself for the past 20 years that we are, and we're fighting a huge, you know, engineering group that says engineering meaning civil engineering that says, no, we need more roads, we need more bridges for more roads, but that's slowly changing. And our group, as Lee's pointed out and Deb's pointed out, is that we are addressing these issues. And for this gentleman from Middlebury right here, that down in the Middlebury College is large enough to build the Cosmo, the Cosmo Hall of rail stations. And I'm sure as soon as we load up a number of trains going southbound in New York or coming back to Middlebury with Middlebury students, that platform will grow its usefulness very rapidly. So there's, but again, it's a start. It's a regeneration that we're taking place. So be patient. Now, how can you help? Christine informs me that for $20, you can go online or see here on the way out and you can be a member of the Rock Rail Action Network. $20, that's it. If you like what you hear today, also pick up one of our new bumper stickers. I'd rather be on the train and when the weather improves, clean off your bumper and slap it on. Thanks for all being here. Have a safe drive home. Thank you.