Don’t rip up Calais Branch

It’s time to stop, look and listen! As plans are hurriedly being made to rip up the state-owned Calais Branch railroad line from Brewer to Calais, I propose we should stop for a moment, look at and listen to what is actually taking place.

I am not opposed to rail trails as they are a great idea and a wonderful recreational opportunity. However, I am opposed to the permanent removal of another part of our state’s infrastructure. Time and again the question arises as to how to attract more businesses to Maine, and the removal of a 120-mile rail line runs contrary to the philosophy that we need to attract more businesses in Maine.

Just because Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI) opted to abandon this rail line does not mean that use for the rail does not nor did not exist. Many larger railroads have abandoned their branch lines not because there was no business, but rather because larger railroads opt for the more lucrative, longer hauls. Many branch lines or parts of main lines are now effectively serviced by short-line operators of which there are several in New England.

The Maine Eastern Railroad is a good example of this, now servicing the Rockland Branch, which was abandoned by GTI in 1984. What is not widely known is that this line once came very close to being torn up and made into a trail just because it was “temporarily” inactive and therefore viewed as useless.

Take a look at the line now. It serves at least four industries, moving commodities that include coal, aggregate and steel, among others. Not only does this help reduce truck traffic and wear on Route 1 (think about how the Calais Branch could reduce the same on Route 9), but the company also employs more than a dozen workers who would otherwise have to force themselves into an extremely thin Maine labor market. And for a line that was going to be ripped up, it has been totally rebuilt to allow for passenger traffic which will eventually connect Rockland to Portland and on to Boston. Had the rails been ripped up, none of these economic possibilities could have, or would have ever existed.

What I am trying to impress is that if the Calais Branch is ripped up, there will never be a possibility of the use of that rail corridor for economic growth again. A rail trail will not bring any economic growth to eastern Maine which needs economic possibilities. People do not expend large amounts of money while using a rail trail, but rather come to use it and then leave. And if the line is ripped up now, we will never know what possible economic benefits the rail line could have brought to eastern Maine.

As a taxpayer, I believe we need to retain what infrastructure we have and think of long-term economic growth. Doing otherwise would not only be shortsighted, but could be a permanent, irreversible, egregious error on our part. Having the rails remain in place costs us nothing and leaves open economic potential. Ripping them up leaves no economic potential.

I would suggest that if a rail trail is a need in the Bangor area, there are potential rail trails to be made from lines that have long since been ripped up. Have opportunities for rail trails between Newport and Dover-Foxcroft, or Newport and Harmony been explored? Yes, there might be some brush work needed to be done, but most of that could easily be done by volunteers, much like those of us who own track cars who have been riding the Calais Branch and have been keeping brush cleared off that line for years.

And these are not the only options. There are, literally, hundreds of miles of unused railroad rights of way in which the rails have already been removed that could be made into extensive trails in Maine (and I would be glad to compile an extensive list of these). But the rights of way in which rail remains are few. And has making a trail next to the existing line been considered, much like that of the trail from Windham to Standish, or the one from Augusta to Gardiner?

I propose that those who wish to make a rail trail out of the Calais Branch so quickly stop for a moment, look at the ramifications of such quick actions and listen to what the possibilities of leaving the rail intact could mean for eastern Maine – a great part of its economic future.

Ken Jackman is a resident of Damariscotta, a sixth-grade schoolteacher in Bristol, and a former summer employee of the Maine Coast Railroad.