PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (WCAX) – Amtrak service on the Adirondack line will now be out of service for the entire summer.
Amtrak last month initially said a six-week repair project to tracks in Quebec would last only about six weeks, or until June 30. But over the weekend officials confirmed all service between Saratoga Springs and Montreal will now be suspended until at least September 9, scuttling the busy summer travel season.
North Country Chamber of Commerce president Garry Douglas in a terse statement Monday called the new developments a “comedy of mismanagement.”
“The old line of frustration about “what a way to run a railroad” was meant for this ludicrous situation,” Douglas said. “A rail service is shut down for three years during and well beyond the pandemic but you don’t use that time to address conditions. Then you restart in April 2023 only to seemingly just discover a heat-related rail issue a few months later leading to last summer’s shutdown. Then you wait until almost summer 2024 to reach a repair agreement that now you find will take three months instead of the announced six weeks to be carried out.” Douglas says he is hoping the state’s congressional delegation can obtain some accountability.
“It is amazing that an ongoing dispute between Amtrak and the Canadian National Railway over the maintenance of less than 40 miles of track in Canada is being allowed to disrupt international travel between the Unites States and Canada and suspend an important transportation option for New Yorkers in the North Country,” Empire State Passengers Assoc. executive director Steve Strauss said in a statement.