Moving New Haven train depot complex in word and deed

Google Maps screen shot of New Haven depot on Route 7.

At the behest of the Agency of Transportation (AOT), the 1850s-vintage railroad depot alongside Route 7 in New Haven Junction is likely to be moved in preparation for the extension of Amtrak's Ethan Allen Express train service north to Burlington from its current northern terminus, Rutland. That's likely to take place early in 2022.

Under the plan, the brick building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and stands, with its chimneys, some 29 feet tall, would move about 1.7 miles to a new location adjacent to the town library, on New Haven's North Street. According to one building-mover who has estimated the relocation costs, the depot weighs about 200 tons.

The Division of Historic Preservation (DHP), which owns the structure, has received bids of $440,000 to $600,000 for the project – but that's just for the building-movers.

Utility lines will have to removed and put back in place, a new foundation will have to be built, a project manager will likely be hired, and safety issues will need to be addressed – all representing further expense.

An earmark of $400,000 was inserted into the state budget to help the effort, and the Town of New Haven, to which DHP expects to transfer the structure's ownership in conjunction with the move, is seeking a federal grant of $350,000 to complement the state contribution.

That suggests a total bill in the $750,000 range. DHP, which prepared the grant application on the town's behalf, declined to provide an estimate of the total anticipated cost.

The Agency of Commerce and Community Development has been evaluating the merits of the grant request. It's one of 25 applications seeking a total of slightly more than $9 million in funding.

But only about half that $9 million will be available for Vermont-bound awards, which will come through the federal Northern Border Regional Commission.

ACCD will be conveying a list of approved applications to Governor Phil Scott by week's end; next week he is expected to approve the list in full – or in part – and send NRBC the finalized requests for Vermont projects next week.

The commission is expected to decide on the requests on August 4 and announce the recipients by August 9.

The process leading to the relocation proposal and grant application began with a question of safety. The depot sits just a few feet from the tracks, creating a sight-line problem: The engineer on the southbound Ethan Allen – but not the northbound – can't see the northbound lanes of the highway well. .

Amtrak has told AOT that correcting the safety risk posed by the station represents an "immediate need," Trini Brassard, assistant director in AOT's Division of Policy, Planning and Intermodal Development (CPPID), told a well-attended New Haven selectboard meeting on January 19.

The only way to address that need, she said, "is to move the building."

Dissenting Voices

"I don't buy it. They're blaming Amtrak for this," said Williston's Carl Fowler, who has organized rail tours and worked with passenger-rail advocacy groups for 50 years. He saw a "slow order" – a slower speed limit at the crossing – as the short-term fix to the sight-line issue.

"The long-term fix is gates," he said, referring to four-quadrant gates, which would block both lanes of traffic on both sides of the crossing and render vehicular intrusion onto the rails all but impossible. The time lost would be minor and the savings might be considerable, in his view.

In a January 19 email responding to questions from AOT, Amtrak's senior director for host railroads, Jim Blair, stated that slowing down the train from its full open-country speed of 59 mph to 10 mph at the crossing would add three minutes to the Burlington-New York City train's schedule.

Slowing down to 40 mph – the speed at which Vermont Rail System's freights rumble through daily – would reduce that time increment considerably more.

But AOT has dismissed the slow-order alternative.

In a January 6 letter that got the relocation process moving, DPPID director Michele Boomhower advised DHP's historic preservation officer, Laura Treischmann, that, "It will be necessary to relocate the station to meet the safety standards required for the operation of the Amtrak service at full speeds."

In a February 18 email, the head of AOT's Bureau of Rail and Aviation, Dan Delabruere, explained that "passenger rail needs to be competitive... Every slow order adds to the length of time a trip takes and results in less passengers using the service."

But it's difficult to know what Amtrak is or is not insisting on.

At a March 4 meeting of an ad hoc committee pondering the antique building's fate, Brassard stated that Amtrak had "generated a report that identified the Depot as a safety issue," according to the minutes of that meeting. But in response to a June public documents request from VBM, AOT stated that no Amtrak documents related to the depot's fate or including recommendations regarding the building existed.

In response to a further request from VBM, specifically seeking the report mentioned at the March 4 meeting, AOT responded that "our research has indicated there are no records responsive to your request."

In a June 21 email statement, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams told VBM that the national passenger rail provider had issued neither recommendations nor requirements concerning the depot's removal or demolition.

Be those issues as they may, the choice presents itself: either add one to three minutes to the train's southbound schedule, or find hundreds of thousands of public dollars to get the building out of the way.

Opinions locally are mixed.

When asked how the town's citizens felt about the landmark station's possible relocation, James Lawrence, proprietor of New Haven's Village Green Market said, "Some are really mad that we're using people's taxpayer money for something that dumb... and other people are happy about it."

According to the minutes of the selectboard's May 4 meeting, no more than about 25 percent of the townspeople support the relocation to the North Street location, but, the minutes note, Treischmann pointed to the wisdom of choosing that site, since the town would otherwise have to buy a plot of land elsewhere at whatever cost, making the grant request less likely to succeed.

The situation in New Haven contrasts with that in Fair Haven, where the same Ethan Allen train comes within about the same few feet of a depot – an abandoned, boarded-up structure ready for the bulldozer.

The line-of-sight issue is as bad as in New Haven: The stationhouse stands even closer to the crossing. The side street crossed sees very little traffic, but also lacks any warning system beyond a modest crossbuck, and the engineer's horn. The train has rolled through daily since 2010, excepting the pandemic hiatus, reportedly at speeds of 30 mph or more.

The underlying reasons for the very different destiny that faces the New Haven station – and carries a big price tag – thus remain a mystery.

This story was filed at VBM’s deadline on July 24, 2021.

Google Maps screen shot of the Fair Haven train depot.