Northward rail expansion being planned Brunswick, Auburn commuter lines seen

ROCKLAND – The railroad authority responsible for the Portland-to-Boston commuter train plans to expand rail service in the state as a way to improve passenger transportation and economic community development.

“The next phase of the Downeaster service is expansion north,” Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, said Friday. Amtrak runs the Downeaster through an agreement with the Rail Authority to establish passenger train service in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

“We’re looking to build commuter lines to Brunswick and Auburn,” Quinn said. Eventually, the Rail Authority would like to open commuter lines to Augusta, Bangor and Montreal.

“That’s many miles and many dollars away,” she said of the destination, adding that the cost of building a train track at $1 million a mile is far less than constructing a highway.

“Our expansion includes the trip to Yarmouth Junction,” Quinn said. “We could refurbish the Pan Am Railways freight line or we could select a new alignment along Interstate 295 over the parallel track owned by the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad,” a short-line railroad operating between Portland and Montreal.

Although the Downeaster is one of Amtrak’s must successful trains, it still loses money, she said.

The Legislature in June made a commitment to continue subsidizing the Downeaster after its federal funding runs out in 2009, Quinn said.

“They don’t know how much it will cost, but they will take it up again next year,” she said. “They have made the commitment.”

Ridership on the Downeaster increased by 32 percent between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006, amounting to 345,000 passenger trips, she said.

“We’re going to see another 8 percent increase this year, and another 100,000 passenger trips,” she added.

Tracy C. Perez, policy specialist with the Maine Department of Transportation’s Office of Passenger Transportation division, said this week that a new state analysis has been started through the Federal Transit Authority for three segments of track: Portland to Yarmouth Junction; Portland to Lewiston-Auburn; and Portland to Brunswick.

In addition, the study will look at a competitive rapid transit bus service between key communities throughout the state.

The feasibility study is necessary for the Passenger Rail Authority to qualify for federal funding for the Downeaster and any new train runs in Maine, Perez said.

Rail improvements on the Pan Am track between Portland and Brunswick would enable the Downeaster to continue to Brunswick and make possible a passenger rail connection on Maine Eastern Railroad to Rockland.

Maine Eastern Railroad operates over the former Maine Central Railroad, Rockland Branch, from Rockland to Brunswick, over the former Maine Central Railroad Lower Road, from Brunswick to Augusta, and over the Lewiston Lower Road, which could be used to reach Waterville and Bangor, said Gordon Page, director of passenger operations.

The state owns the track from Rockland to Brunswick on which Maine Eastern Railroad has a long-term lease.

Gov. John Baldacci in 2004 asked Maine Eastern Railroad to carry passengers from Brunswick to the Lobster Festival in Rockland. In 2005, the company expanded its passenger service with regular excursion trains to and from Brunswick with stops in Wiscasset and Bath. “You will see continued growth,” Page said. “I think things are being done quietly. There are a lot of stakeholders involved. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle. Private enterprise is involved.”

There has been opposition to the excursion trains idling at Rockland’s downtown Union Station. Residents, concerned about unhealthful effects in their neighborhoods of diesel locomotive emissions, have proposed an ordinance amendment that would require Maine Eastern Railroad to move its passenger operations from the station to the railroad’s roundhouse property a half-mile away.

After referring the matter to a Portland law firm knowledgeable about environmental law, the City Council plans to take up the matter at its July 9 meeting.

Meanwhile, the DOT, which has invested nearly $500,000 in track upgrades and new crossing signals in Rockland, is opposed to moving the station, where a year-round restaurant has filled the space of the former ticket and waiting room.

“This expansion is very important to us from a passenger standpoint, but also from a freight standpoint,” Page said. “We’d love to handle more freight.”

The attention to rail service is an outgrowth of Baldacci’s executive order last September calling for development of a plan to improve passenger rail service within the state and to extend regular daily routes to interior and coastal communities.

The Maine State Planning Office in April held a conference in Hallowell, where the DOT outlined a 20-year transportation plan to expand passenger rail routes because of the need to make transportation more efficient without building more highways.

“The Portland-to-Boston rail corridor represents $100 million in private investment and connects Maine to a very large region,” DOT Deputy Commissioner Greg Nadeau said at the meeting, which focused on showing the correlation between expanded passenger rail service and economic development in communities along a railroad line.