If Shelburne, Middlebury, and Wellesley, MA can put up with it, I'm sure Woodstock could manage.

Compared to some of the other proposals I've done, I think this is pretty feasible!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen_Express

The Ethan Allen Express expansion, a very real network expansion that happened last year, was a pretty BIG project. However, since it utilized existing track it only ended up costing $26 million, a far cry from billions of dollars. Of course, that track is state-owned, which not all of this is, so that would incur additional costs. However, a lot of what I've constructed here also includes other states and cities, including economic centers like Montreal and Boston, which would appreciate a direct connection so not all of the funding would fall on Vermont's back.

Other commenters have discussed federal money being required, which would make sense. As climate change gets worse, though, I think that getting ahead of the curve now before oil prices skyrocket, resources become more scarce, and our environment generally gets ruined would be ideal.

No, but after seeing the video of the traffic jam posted here recently toward Stowe, I thought a skiing train would be a fun (and novel for those tourist $$$) inclusion! I imagine the residents would appreciate their roads being a little less clogged during ski season, and if the train were electric it would be pretty quiet.

There used to be a rail line but it didn't go all the way to the mountain and was paved over as Route 100.

My dark blue line is actually just the Vermonter, haha. I wanted to include the existing lines as well to get a picture of the complete network. Yes, it would still go to all of those places.

Totally agree. That is one place where new track would need to be laid down. It would certainly be an engineering challenge, but considering that investments in rail are some of the very best investments society can make in terms of ROI, I think it would be well worth it.

Why? The Ethan Allen Express was expanded to Burlington just last year, and Amtrak is currently planning an expansion of the Vermonter to Montreal as well. A Montreal to Boston rail connection seems like a no-brainer too, and then that only leaves a few more nice-to-have lines.

They are connected by freight rail as is, actually! I debated their inclusion only because I-91 exists already and it has pretty low traffic volume. However, if the rest of this is built, they should probably be included as well.

This is my proposal for where Vermont could look toward expanding its passenger rail system within the next couple decades. With a few notable exceptions, it largely utilizes existing track and right-of-ways, which could reduce costs associated with building up the network. I tried to both include connections to major cities not served by Vermont's existing network (Montreal and Boston) as well as new stations for regions poorly served by existing rail and Vermont's interstate highway system. I marked existing stations in black and new stations in color, and used OpenStreetMap!