Excursion train plan plagued by doubts

FREEPORT – Freeport’s town manager has his doubts about plans to run an excursion train from Portland to Rockland this summer.

The train, which would run during the Maine Lobster Festival in early August, would stop in Freeport and Brunswick at temporary platforms that the state would build for about $5,000.

But Town Manager Dale Olmstead said liability insurance could cost Freeport $15,000, and he’s not sure whether anyone would get off in town.

“We’re questioning if this makes sense,” Olmstead said.

He doubts whether anyone headed for the lobster festival would bother to get off in Freeport. If they did, he said, the train wouldn’t return for several hours or perhaps not even until the next day.

“How are they going to get back?” he asked.

Tracy Perez, a policy specialist with the Maine Department of Transportation, said the state also is waiting to learn more details about the excursion runs, which were proposed to Gov. John Baldacci by David Fink, vice president of Guilford Rail System. Guilford owns the track that runs from Plaistow, N.H., to Brunswick. The state owns the rail between Brunswick and Rockland.

The excursion trains would be run by Maine Eastern Railroad with four passenger cars, said Gordon Fuller, Maine Eastern’s chief operating officer.

But Perez said the governor is behind the excursion train proposal because it dovetails with Maine’s goal of increased “car-free tourism” to ease congestion on the state’s roadways in the summer. And Perez believes Freeport would benefit from the train.

“Freeport is a major tourist attraction in Maine,” she said. “There probably are people who won’t take it all the way to Rockland who will go to Freeport.”