Train from Burlington to Middlebury links familiar places, creates new experiences
MIDDLEBURY – When Amtrak began train service from Burlington in 2022, supporters heralded the route for finally connecting the state’s largest city with the nation’s largest city, New York.
That was why I took the train for the first time this April, to go to New York for fun and a bit of work, writing about the Broadway musical “Suffs” created by and starring Vermont native Shaina Taub. (I rode not from Burlington but the next stop south, Vergennes.)
It wasn’t long, I think between Middlebury and Rutland, before I realized the train doesn’t just connect Burlington with New York. It connects Vermont with itself. With one train south and another heading north later in the day, it’s possible to use Amtrak as a commuter train to visit a Vermont community for the day.
I’ve always loved train travel, whether it was a short jaunt down the Hudson Valley or a long ride connecting countries in Europe. That feeling of sitting in comfort and suddenly finding yourself in a new place to explore is thrilling.
I took the train Sunday, April 28, from Burlington not to a metropolis but to Middlebury, a Vermont town I’ve been to dozens of times for work and pleasure. Sure, I could drive there in 40 minutes. But I wanted that freedom of arriving somewhere with nothing to do but roam, even if it’s a place I know well.
I wanted to be a traveler in my own land.
9 a.m., Burlington Bay Market & Café
My wife drives me to Burlington so we can have breakfast as close to the train station as possible. We order breakfast sandwiches, coffee and orange juice at Burlington Bay and sit at a window overlooking Lake Champlain and the tracks I’ll be riding in an hour.
My sandwich is simple but excellent. The Bay Original has bacon, two eggs and cheddar cheese on a Portuguese muffin, a moister, smoother, almost roll-like version of an English muffin. As I take my last few sips of coffee I hear the train engine rumble to a start, my signal that it’s time to go.
9:55 a.m., Union Station
I board early for the 10:10 a.m. departure. The station isn’t super-busy on a Sunday morning, but I do spot familiar faces getting on what’s now our local train.
We leave right on time. I sit at a lakeside window to see my wife waving goodbye from Perkins Pier. It feels like one of those movies where the guy heads to war as his sweetheart sees him off, except I’m just a reporter going to a quiet college town for a day of food and art.
It’s lovely to see the lake, the Adirondacks and hill-ringed farm fields as the train rolls slowly through the city before picking up speed heading south. This is a much more glorious way to view the landscape than if I were driving down U.S. 7 with dominant views of stoplights and taillights.
10:38 a.m., Vergennes train station
A couple of passengers get off here less than half an hour after leaving Burlington. People without cars or who would rather not drive have a new way to get to this sweet little city. Another half-dozen or so passengers get on board, much as I did two weeks earlier for that seven-hour trek to New York.
An announcer says the café car is now open. I’m all set for meal plans for the day, but it’s reassuring to know sustenance can be had. The train pulls out of the station at exactly 10:44 a.m., the same time I left Vergennes on my trip to New York.
11 a.m., Middlebury train station
The train arrives in Middlebury. A couple dozen passengers, many of college age, get on board. I’m one of the few who disembarks.
I’m in Middlebury for the next 10 hours, until the northbound train returns. Even if it’s a mellow Sunday on an ordinary spring day, I get that tingly feeling that this town is mine to explore.
Noon, The Mad Taco
I walk from the train station toward the nearby Marble Works business complex along Otter Creek. My optimism hits an immediate snag: My first planned destination, American Flatbread, isn’t open, even though the restaurant’s website says it’s open for brunch from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays. (In fact, the website shouts “BRUNCH!”)
Oh, well, someone in town must be serving lunch. As I cross the footbridge across Otter Creek toward downtown, I hear and feel the churn of the waterfall in its full spring roil. The surprise thunderstorm that hit first thing this morning is long gone. Picnickers take advantage of the gorgeous day by lounging along the creek’s dramatic banks.
Spots I’d visit in the minutes before lunch – Edgewater Gallery, the Sheldon Museum, the Vermont Book Shop – are all closed this Sunday morning. I wander the streets to get my bearings in a town I’ve been to so many times, but never with so many hours on my hands.
My circuit leads me back to Marble Works, and I know that just across the footbridge I’ll find The Mad Taco. The restaurant has a sandwich board outside saying it’s open from noon to 8 p.m. every day. Sunday is a day, so I go inside to become one of the first customers.
Soon I’m sitting at a picnic table on the outdoor patio savoring a juicy pork-belly taco and a tangy achiote chicken taco and sipping a pilsner from von Trapp Brewing. I listen to the roar of the falls and chatter from Middlebury College students and employees and relish the chance to relax in fresh air after a long, blah winter. Temperatures are only in the mid-60s, but it feels warm.
1 p.m. Royal Oak Coffee
I follow my footsteps back over the footbridge past the Marble Works complex to homey Royal Oak Coffee, across Seymour Street from the train station. I order a soothing coffee to-go and rest briefly in an Adirondack chair on the front lawn overlooking the station. I realize I’d better start my longest walk of the day to get to the event that spurred my Sunday visit to Middlebury in the first place.
2 p.m., Mahaney Arts Center, Middlebury College
I arrive early and sit outside to finish my coffee in sight of the Robert Indiana “LOVE” sculpture. I head inside the Mahaney Arts Center for the free matinee performance by the Heath Quartet.
Most concerts, of course, are at night, and with the way the once-a-day train schedule works you’d have to leave an evening performance early to catch the train back north. A matinee was my chance to see a concert in an arts-rich college town and still rely on the train to get me there.
The Heath Quartet opens at a packed Robison Concert Hall with a bit of Bach, a melodic overture of sorts leading to a longer, friskier piece by Haydn. The second half focuses on 20th-century composers, with a mysterious work by Henriette Bosmans and an intense piece by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
The sound is perfect in this visually pleasing hall with its walls of light, curving wood. The art of architecture helps elevate the art of performance.
4:06 p.m., Middlebury College Museum of Art
The concert ends and I head downstairs to the Middlebury College Museum of Art. I’ve visited before but either forgot or missed works by some big names scattered throughout the collection.
Those names include Rembrandt, Picasso, Warhol, Chihuly, Rodin and my ol’ pal Frederic Edwin Church, whose historic home above the Hudson River I worked at as a college student. His painting of Otter Creek takes me back to the footbridge I’ve crossed so many times today.
I was just as smitten by the paintings, sculpture and crafts by artists unknown to me and cultures in Africa and Asia I have not had the opportunity to experience first-hand. The museum’s collection is small but worthy – especially because, like with the Heath Quartet concert, admission is free.
5 p.m. Trail Around Middlebury
From the Mahaney Arts Center I cut across the sports complex to a segment of the Trail Around Middlebury, aka the TAM, an 18-mile circuit my wife and I have walked pretty much in its entirety in snippets over the years. I pick up the Red Kelly Trail along the college’s Ralph Myhre Golf Course, hearing the ping of tee shots and tweet-tweet of bird calls as I stroll.
I planned to walk a fair distance out and back, but soon I reach a steep decline that would become a steep incline on my return trip. I’ve already done a lot of walking today, so I’ve earned a rest on a bench near the 11th-hole tee box. Amtrak texts to say my return train is expected to arrive 15 minutes late in Middlebury. Looks like my stay in town is going into overtime.
6:30 p.m., Fire & Ice Restaurant
My circuitous route back downtown through the college campus takes me past the library, the chapel and the student center. Amtrak updates my train’s status to say it’s now likely to be 40 minutes late, so I have plenty of time for ambling.
Fire & Ice, across from the train station next to Royal Oak Coffee, has been around 50 years. I’ve been in Vermont more than half that time and write about food for my job, yet somehow I’ve never been here.
The décor takes me aback, and takes me back; it’s shockingly retro, with quaint touches including a boat at the entrance, a light-fixture-filled canoe hanging from the ceiling, walls brimming with bric-a-brac and more polished wood than you’d find in a Minwax showroom. Everything that goes around comes around, as they say, so this feels fresh in an era when new restaurants aim for a loud, sterile warehouse vibe. Maybe it’s just that I’m getting old and nostalgic, but I find it comforting.
The menu is also old-school. Those loud, sterile new restaurants may not offer familiar standards like shrimp scampi or fettucine Alfredo that are included on the Fire & Ice menu.
I’m in Middlebury so I should order a drink by one of my favorite Vermont breweries, Drop-In Brewing just off the TAM on the south side of town. The Heart of Lothian Scottish ale goes with the special I ordered, duck ragout, shredded duck and pasta with vegetables and asiago cheese.
The dish is creamy and succulent. Small chunks of carrot and celery take the load off the heaviness of the meat and pasta. As with the cilantro I carefully picked off my lunch at The Mad Taco, a little pungent Asiago cheese goes a long way for me, so I set much of that aside.
I finish my entrée an hour before my train’s scheduled but now-delayed departure, so I might as well stay for dessert and coffee. I dig into a maple crème brulee with the thickest, crunchiest shell of any I’ve had, like eating a sugary, delicious windshield. My Dutch coffee, made with crème de menthe and crème de cacao, is warm and minty, a dessert all its own.
Fire & Ice stops welcoming new customers at 8 p.m., but those of us already here can stay a while. When I washed dishes at a restaurant in college I used to resent customers arriving 10 minutes before closing time, because it meant I’d have a long night. As a customer killing time waiting for a delayed train, this kind of late dining is most welcome.
For two hours I’ve enjoyed delicious food and drink and fine service. The server leaves me an after-dinner mint. How retro once again.
8:30 p.m., Middlebury train platform
There comes a time at a restaurant when you go from customer to trespasser, so I need to make my way to the train platform. The rain I successfully dodged all day is here, albeit super-light, so the raincoat I’ve carried in my backpack all day makes its first appearance.
I walk the short distance to the platform and wait, and wait, for a train Amtrak now says could be 45 minutes late. I left home exactly 12 hours ago. What’s another three-quarters of an hour?
The train arrives just before 9:20 p.m., only half an hour late, which in Amtrak time isn’t bad.
10:05 p.m., Union Station, Burlington
The train makes quick headway from Middlebury to Burlington, so only 10 minutes after it was due we pull up to Union Station where my wife greets me. There’s no place nearby open this late for a nightcap, so we drive the short distance up the hill to find a place downtown.
We arrive at The Archives, the bar/arcade where the Burlington Free Press was once located. We both order one of Vermont’s most-celebrated beers, an Edward American pale ale by Hill Farmstead Brewery, and sit at a front window overlooking a quiet College Street.
It’s been a long day. It’s been a wonderful day, and all for a $22 round-trip train ticket. I tell my wife I’m already dreaming of a similar carefree excursion in a few months from Vergennes to Rutland. Maybe that day my train will come in on time.
If you go
Destinations visited in this article include:
Burlington Bay Market & Café, 125 Battery St., Burlington. (802) 864-0110, www.burlingtonbaycafe.com
Union Station, 1 Main St., Burlington. www.amtrak.com/stations/btn
The Mad Taco, 3 Mill St., Middlebury. (802) 382-9070, www.themadtaco.com/middlebury
Royal Oak Coffee, 30 Seymour St., Middlebury. (802) 349-1609, www.royaloakcoffee.com
Mahaney Arts Center/ Middlebury College Museum of Art, 72 Porter Field Road, Middlebury College. (802) 443-3168 (arts center), (802) 443-5007 (museum), www.middlebury.edu/college/arts/about
Trail Around Middlebury, www.maltvt.org/trails
Fire & Ice Restaurant, 26 Seymour St., Middlebury. (802) 388-7166, www.fireandicerestaurant.com
Middlebury train platform, 30 Middle Seymour St., Middlebury. www.amtrak.com/stations/mby
The Archives, 191 College St., Burlington. www.thearchivesbar.com
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Amtrak service from Burlington to Middlebury leads to new experiences
