GMRC Resumes Operations After Vermont Storms Last Month

Vermont Rail System

LUDLOW, Vt. – The Vermont Rail System has reopened the GMRC thanks to funding from FEMA and the state of Vermont.

A few weeks ago, RT&S reported on the floods in the northeast that caused extensive damage to tracks in Vermont. The Green Mountain Railroad saw some “pretty major damage,” and officials hoped that it would resume operations in two or three weeks in that area. 

Railfan has reported that the Vermont Rail System has reopened the GMRC thanks to funding from FEMA and the state of Vermont. Operations were able to resume after 19 days of work, and “the first train ran Monday morning.” The President of Vermont Rail System, Selden Houghton, told Railfan and Railroad that it is doing “a lot better today than we were three weeks ago.”

Along with work done on the Green Mountain Railroad in Ludlow and East Wallingford, work was also done to two bridge abutments. Service on the WACR is ongoing and is “expected to resume before the end of the week.”

According to MountainTimes, the Green Mountain Line began to see work a couple weeks ago with “workers . . . [filling] in almost all of the washed-out land.” Additionally, in East Wallingford, “crews were working to shore up the hillside, and track replacement was set to be completed this week.”

VRS’ Washington County Railroad line also suffered “really significant damage”, and “two locomotives and 11 freight cars were stranded in Barre during the flooding, and all will need to be repaired before they can be used again.” VRS expects the line to be finished with repairs by the end of the week. Other work will also take place on damaged track south of Middlebury.

The Vermonter is also up and running on the New England Central Railroad line, and a lobbyist for the railroad, Charles Hunter, stated that it was “a monumental effort by many to restore service in one week’s time.”

VRS President Houghton compared the damage VRS experienced in 2011 when Tropical Storm Irene hit the area and “affected more railroad companies throughout New England,” and stated that unlike then, “Vermont wasn’t completely severed from the national rail network.”