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Amtrak's Ethan Allen from New York's Pennsylvania Station almost made it to North Bennington, Arlington and Manchester Vermont over newly rebuilt track from Hoosick Junction, New York to North Bennington, Vermont at the beginning of the decade. The photos further down on this page depict the status of the track reconstruction project as of December 28, 2001. For political and budgetary reasons, that service was never started. In April 2008, however, the interchange was reopened for freight service as was reported here. Guildford Rail (aka Pan American Railways) noted the following in their second 2008 issue of the Pan Am Clipper: Currently, each Friday a VRS crew assembles a unit train of limestone slurry and pulls it down to Hoosick Junction. This train is then repowered and re-crewed by PAR and run straight through to Maine where it is split. The respective sections then move to the paper mills in Rumford and Shawmut. Source: http://www.guilfordrail.com/xpress/2008q2.pdf Immediately below are photographs of the restored wye at Hoosick Junction and slurry cars waiting to be picked up as seen one Friday morning in June 2009 (note the Guilford locomotive in the fourth picture): 
As of the summer of 2009, the Vermont Department of Transportation still lists the restoration of rail passenger service through Hoosick Junction and North Bennington as part of the future for train service in the Green Mountain State: The vision for future passenger rail service in Vermont includes the current service plus the addition of service to communities along the route 7 corridor not presently served. The project to achieve that vision is known as the ABRBE (Albany-Bennington-Rutland-Burlington-Essex Junction) Project. It is anticipated that the communities of North Bennington, Manchester, Middlebury and Burlington would b served by this new service. The first priority is to complete improvements to the rail infrastructure that would allow the extension of the present Ethan Allen Express service up to Burlington. The second phase will include service to those communities south of Rutland. Source: http://railroads.vermont.gov/passengerrail.htm |
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The Rutland Railroad Connects to Westbound B&M at Hoosick Junction Once Again! 
The Wye to the Eastbound B&M at Hoosick Junction Remains Disused 
The first bridge and level crossing on the restored Rutland 
Moving Eastwards 
State Line 
North Bennington Station and Freight Yards 
On To Arlington 
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