For travelers
Ride the train today
Amtrak already gets you to Rutland, Bellows Falls, Brattleboro or Claremont. Here is how to do the last miles to Ludlow, Okemo and Chester, checked and dated.
Plan the trip →Bellows Falls · Chester · Ludlow · Rutland
Passenger trains for the Okemo Valley.
A volunteer alliance working to connect our towns to Amtrak's Vermonter and Ethan Allen Express, starting with a guide to the taxi, ride-share and rental car services available today.
The tracks are already here.
Fifty-two miles of state-owned railroad run from Bellows Falls through Chester and Ludlow to Rutland, passing the base of Okemo Mountain on the way. Amtrak stops at both ends: the Vermonter at Bellows Falls, the Ethan Allen Express at Rutland. Scheduled passenger service ended in 1953, but excursion trains ran on this line from 1964 until 2019, when the pandemic stopped them. After a four-year pause, the Okemo Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce brought a Holiday Express back to Chester Depot and the Bellows Falls firefighters started a Santa Express out of Bellows Falls. This fall, an Okemo Valley Foliage Train has been added out of Ludlow.
We think the line can carry people again. We also think the only way to prove it is one visible step at a time: a bus that meets the train, a charter that sells out, a count of supporters that grows in public. Not a promise about a train that would take years. This site is where the steps happen, and where you can see how far we have gotten.
For neighbors
Add your name
We count supporters in public, because a number is what moves a state agency. Join the list, or sign on as a supporter.
Join →For the skeptics
The plan
Four steps, each with an honest status: from the excursion trains that already run to the scheduled service that would take a decade.
Read the plan →Ride one this year
2026 excursion trains you can ride
October 3 and 4, 2026
Okemo Valley Foliage Train
Departs from the Blue Lot on Witalec Road in Ludlow. Sponsored by the Okemo Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Tickets from the Chamber →November 28, 2026
Santa Express
Departs from the Bellows Falls Amtrak station. Sponsored by the Bellows Falls Firefighters' Association.
Tickets from Rockingham Fire & Rescue on Facebook →December 19 and 20, 2026
Okemo Valley Holiday Express
Departs from the historic Chester Depot. Sponsored by the Okemo Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Tickets from the Chamber →Tickets come from the sponsors, not from us. We are grateful to the Green Mountain Railroad and Vermont Rail System for providing the passenger cars and locomotives that run these trains. While you are at it, look at their own Champlain Valley Dinner Train.
One line, two Amtrak connections.
The Vermonter runs daily from Washington and New York up the Connecticut River to Bellows Falls. The Ethan Allen Express runs daily from New York up the Hudson to Rutland. Between those two stations lies the Okemo Valley, with Chester's historic depot at one end, Ludlow and Okemo at the other, and a railroad connecting them that carries freight every week and passengers a few days a year.
Bellows Falls is already growing: boardings there rose about forty percent between 2022 and 2025, with no connection to the Okemo Valley timed to the train. We would like to give those riders somewhere to go.
"It would take years for such a train to become a reality, but everything involving rail takes years, and we have to start somewhere."
Preston Bristow, an OVPRA founder