An interesting "hack" I was thinking about today, and I priced it out online tonight and it seems to work out:
If you need to get from Montreal to Boston on the cheap, it looks like one way to do it is to take Amtrak's Adirondack train from Montreal to Plattsburgh, NY. Once in Plattsburgh (which looks like about a three hour ride), you wait a bit and then transfer to a turboprop Saab 340 and it's a one hour flight to Boston.
Both the airline and Amtrak are partially funded by the NY department of transportation, so tickets are very cheap. One way from Montreal to Plattsburgh is about $20, and the flight is about $60 online. It's around the same fare as a one-way bus ticket, but I think it's slightly faster even including the couple hour layover in Plattsburgh, and you're not spending fucking 8 hours on a bus.
Unfortunately the timing doesn't seem to work out in the other direction.
If you need to get from Montreal to Boston on the cheap, it looks like one way to do it is to take Amtrak's Adirondack train from Montreal to Plattsburgh, NY. Once in Plattsburgh (which looks like about a three hour ride), you wait a bit and then transfer to a turboprop Saab 340 and it's a one hour flight to Boston.
Both the airline and Amtrak are partially funded by the NY department of transportation, so tickets are very cheap. One way from Montreal to Plattsburgh is about $20, and the flight is about $60 online. It's around the same fare as a one-way bus ticket, but I think it's slightly faster even including the couple hour layover in Plattsburgh, and you're not spending fucking 8 hours on a bus.
Unfortunately the timing doesn't seem to work out in the other direction.