Description:

Major cities: Portland, Boston, Montreal

Segment	Mileage	Top Speed (goal)	Travel Time (goal)
Boston to Montreal	339	110 mph	4:31 hr
Boston to Portland, Auburn, ME	150	110 mph	n/a hr

With Boston as its hub, the 480-mile Northern New England designated corridor will serve destinations in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Montreal, Canada.

On December 15, 2001, passenger rail service returned to Portland, ME from Boston's North Station with four Amtrak Downeaster service trains daily. Ridership for FY 2003 was 254,030 or an average of 696 people per day. Recently, the United States Court of Appeals refused to hear a petition by the Boston and Maine Railroad Corporation to limit speeds on the line to 60 mph. Amtrak hopes to now increase the speed of its trains from the current 59 mph maximum to 79 mph, reducing trip times by 15 minutes.

The states of New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts completed Phase I of a planning and feasibility study for the 329-mile portion of the designated corridor from Boston, MA to Montreal, PQ, Canada. Ridership forecasts predict that nearly 684,000 riders would use a 5 3/4-hour service between Boston and Montreal. Based on this initial assessment, the states are developing a scope of work for a Phase II study to determine the engineering work required, operations, costs and revenues, expected to take approximately 12 months to complete.

The conference report accompanying the Transportation/Treasury Appropriations Act, 2004, directed the Secretary to include the route from Boston through Worcester and Springfield, MA to Albany, NY and from Springfield, MA through Hartford to New Haven, CT as part of this corridor. FRA will be seeking information on these segments similar to that provided for the original application by the States to ensure that the high-speed corridor database is complete.

The FRA and the Federal Highway Administration jointly manage the Section 1103(c) grade crossing hazard elimination program in designated high-speed corridors. Over $65 million has been invested in reducing grade crossing hazards since the program's beginning in 1993. Details on the grade crossing inventory in the Northern New England Corridor can be found HERE .

Northern New England Corridor Contacts
Organization	Personal Contact	Topics
Vermont Agency of Transportation  Rail Division National Life Building - Drawer 33 Montpelier, VT 05633-5001	Charles Miller Director, Rail Division Tel: 802-828-5719 Fax: 802-828-2829 charlie.miller@state.vt.us	Passenger, freight and grade crossings.
Massachusetts DOT Executive Offices of Transportation  10 Park Plaza, Suite 3170 Boston, MA 02116	Thomas S. Cahir Deputy Secretary Transportation Programs  Tel: 617-973-8090 Fax: 617-973-8032 thomas.cahir@eot.state.ma.us	Passenger, freight, and grade crossings.
New Hampshire DOT Administrator, Bureau of Railroads and Public Transportation P.O. Box 483 Concord, NH 03301-6900	Christopher (Kit) Morgan Administrator Tel: 603-271-2468 Fax: 603-271-6767 cmorgan@dot.state.nh.us	Passenger, freight, and grade crossings.

Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) contacts for the Northern New England HSR Corridor (currently not available)