Extending Schwarzenegger's vision: A Continental Hydrogen Highway - letter to The Valley News, 6/14/08

A letter writer states that the New Hampshire Legislature refuses to expend its share of funding to advance feasibility studies for a Boston-Montreal Speed Rail which had hopes of getting to Boston from White River Junction via Nashua , Concord and Claremont . But there are other ways to get to Boston . The train could drop down from White River Junction to Brattleboro , Northampton , Massachusetts and Springfield , possibly even with less difficulty as highway paths are already cut there and those regions are largely rural. Western Massachusetts, especially around Amherst and Northampton where a link would be critical, would likely be sympathetic to this idea as well.

This route could also be used to begin to define a continental “hydrogen highway” which requires hydrogen fill stations periodically from Boston to Montreal like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed from San Diego to Vancouver. As many Canadian Premiers are sympathetic to Schwarzenegger’s innovation, an environmental corridor could be visualized through sympathetic regions from Boston to Montreal and west to Vancouver , where trains already run, then dropping down to Seattle and California . Hydrogen stations could be plugged in across the Trans-Canada and one could drive from Boston to CA in a hydrogen vehicle or take a fast train on the same route through sympathetic regions, leaving the obstructionist and hide-bound New Hampshire legislators out entirely.