Restore railroad to help Down East

The issue of Jack Sutton’s op-ed piece, “Don’t destroy Calais branch railroad track for trail” (BDN, March 16), should concern any person worried about the future of eastern Maine. The zeal to create a recreational trail from the currently inert Calais Branch rail line in order to improve the environment and to support recreation is counter-intuitive.

To improve its economy, Maine desperately needs a functional and reliable railroad system responsive to the needs of industry for the timely movement and reliable delivery of bulk raw and finished materials. In southern Maine, a reasonable semblance of rail functions remains. East of the Penobscot, it is nonexistent except for a slight service at Calais and occasional service from Vanceboro to Brownville Junction, both provided by Canadian railroad.

At Eastport, the state has the finest deep-water port on the East Coast. The port is considerably nearer to Europe than another American port with significant positive economic implications, and it is virtually non-maintenance due to the huge tidal flows which continuously sweep clean the harbor floor. This port, however, is nearly fatally hobbled by having service only by truck because the branch railroad serving Eastport was removed from service.

Sutton makes the very strong case for maintaining the branch corridor as an unused railroad. He is clearly correct that once the line is deactivated and given a new one, re-activation to rail use will be extraordinarily expensive and probably impossible. Thus, the future of Down East will be forever handicapped. It is difficult to fathom the reasoning of environmentalists championing the elimination of a railroad. Relatively, railroads are environmentally friendly. Lacking the railroad, the Down East region may depend

on trucks to move freight.

Trucks have only one attribute, possibly considered to be positive: they can go from here to there on demand. Trucks reward inefficiency, lack of planning, and personal rather than societal profit. With truck transportation, there is no need to plan, organize or consolidate.

Trucks do not allow “just in time” delivery, eliminating inventory expense. This, however, runs up huge direct and indirect other expenses. Similarly, there is no need to concentrate production facilities near each other.

Rather, the recent pattern has been to situate facilities wherever a new tax break can be found and ship by truck. Put simply, truck transport enables businesses to put their individual benefit or profit ahead of societal benefit. Almost always, it also means new construction in previously underdeveloped locations.

Post-World War II development in the United States has been pegged to the two glamorous economic “newbies”: the airplane and the interstate road system. The airplane favors and requires a piecemeal shipping system based on trucking. The glamour of air shipping has ebbed as we have seen fuel costs and air shipping costs soar. At the same time, it is now becoming glaringly evident how prohibitively damaging trucking is to our non-interstate roadways.

Do not believe, even for a moment, that the “taxes” the trucks allegedly pay for roadway maintenance cover the costs of damage that increasingly overweight trucks cause to roadways which then require hugely expensive repairs. Additionally, with the soaring fuel costs and the availability of petroleum fuel increasingly questionable, we are being asked to incur this financial burden in order to ease the burden for the trucking industry by approving even higher weight limits and building more and better roads. Higher weights on today’s roadways guarantee faster deterioration of the roads.

More better roads ensure undesirable wider swaths through usually undeveloped land. And more truck transportation also means greater amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

Exactly what part of the this scenario is environmentally friendly? If we claim a narrow corridor through the woods for recreation, how many people will use it? Will Down East people with no steady employment-income due to insufficient numbers of jobs due to lack of supporting infrastructure for industry have much time and use for a recreational trail?

Will sufficient numbers of wealthy residents “from away” move Down East to support a hobbled economy based increasingly on supporting their lifestyle? Will they use the trail in sufficient numbers to justify having it? Will the trail mainly favor ATV and snowmobilers?

Need I repeat my comment about increased greenhouse gasses or add comments on perversion of the environment by noisy machines?

None of this, it seems to me, is favorable to a Down East economy, to the traditional Down East way of life or to the environment. The evidence is clear. A railroad is exponentially cleaner than trucking. Railroads support efficient industrial development and can move cargo to ports without clogging roadways. And please note, industrial leaders do not even look at areas when they consider new locations for their business expansion or development which have no adequate railroad service.

Sutton is totally correct. Down East must retain its potential for railroad development. “Interim development” and “railbanking” as operative concessions are simply untenable. The Down East region has some active rail service at either end and none in between. To develop in-between Down East, we must connect the ends with a functional 87-mile middle.

The act of restoring a railroad will not deprive Down East of recreation. It will make recreation more likely as it enhances the likelihood of adding industry to add to the economic development of this region. And preserving the railroad will help preserve the environment by freeing up tax dollars from road repair, by reducing dollars for new road development and by reducing, reducing, reducing an unnecessary Down East contribution to pollution and global warming.

Charles T. McHugh is a resident of Baileyville.