"Around the Loop One Last Time"
On November 29th, 2020, Amtrak's Switching Crew takes the Vermonter consist around the New Haven Yard Loop for last time in preparation for it's final westbound run from New Haven for the foreseeable future. Started in 1995 as the replacement to the Montrealer, the Vermonter has ran as a daily service from Washington DC to St. Albans, Vermont with station stops in between. On March, 26th, 2020 Vermonter service east/ north of New Haven, CT was cut due to loss of funding from the state of Vermont as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then the train ran as scheduled in both directions with the consist being looped in New Haven. With this train only running as far as New Haven, ridership on these 2 trains was extremely low prompting Amtrak to truncate the service even further. As of November 30th, 2020 the train now runs between Washington, DC and New York's Pennsylvania Station, with no current plans to restore service towards Vermont.