ROCKLAND – Discussions about restoring passenger train service between Rockland and points south, west and north are no longer hypothetical.

The state Legislature passed a rail funding bill April 18 that will make possible the rehabilitation of 28 miles of track between Brunswick and Portland to allow Amtrak’s Downeaster passenger train to travel north of Portland. The $31 million upgrade is expected to occur in 2009, with passenger service to start in 2010.

The upgraded rail link will open up passenger lines to Rockland, Augusta, Lewiston and Auburn, Gordon Page, vice president of Maine Eastern Railroad in Rockland, said in an interview this week.

“Passage of the bill in the short term means that the railroad has to start planning for meeting another train, the Downeaster,” Page said.

“In the long term, it means that Maine Eastern Railroad will be providing a new service that didn’t exist before – as a connecting service to the Downeaster,” Page said.

The link also will help freight trains move more quickly over tracks that are more reliable, he said. The aging Brunswick-Portland link allows trains to travel up to 40 mph safely. The upgraded track will enable travel at 60 mph, Page said. A combination of federal, state and railroad money will be used to pay for the upgrade.

On Nov. 1, 2003, the Morristown & Erie Railway established operations in Maine as Maine Eastern Railroad, according to the company’s Web site. Maine Eastern has rights to operate freight and passenger trains over the former Maine Central Railroad’s Rockland Branch, which runs from Brunswick to Rockland, and the former Maine Central Lower Road, which runs from Brunswick to Augusta. The railroad has passenger rights to run over the Lewiston Lower Road from Brunswick to Lisbon Falls.

The three lines connect at Brunswick Junction in Brunswick.

Maine Eastern operates regular excursion trains between Rockland and Brunswick between May and October. The track will allow travel at 60 mph and won’t have to be upgraded, Page said.

“The excursion product that we have will be modified,” Page said. “We’ll have to change that model to some degree.”

“In terms of new service, if the Amtrak Downeaster comes to Brunswick seven days a week, 365 days a year, that means the railroad will be operating 365 days a year as a passenger train, and not just as a passenger excursion train,” he said.

“If the Downeaster is doing seven days a week from Portland to Brunswick, then that’s what we will do [from Rockland to Brunswick] to match up with passenger service,” he added.

The change in service will attract a different set of riders, he pointed out. People get on an excursion train just for the fun of riding a train.

“What we expect to see now is an increase in people using the train for commuting, from Portland to Brunswick, or from Rockland to Boston, for that matter,” he said.

He predicts that trains will be used increasingly by commuters as gasoline prices continue to rise.

Page said Maine Eastern Railroad hopes to be in a good spot to serve passengers.

“This is one of the reasons we got involved in 2004,” he said. “We negotiated with the Department of Transportation and Gov. John Baldacci, allowing us to take over the line and providing a freight service.”

The excursion service began as a request for Maine Eastern Railroad to have a train for the Lobster Festival in Rockland and has grown to what it is now, he added.

“For the last three years, we have looked at our position as a placeholder in the event full service would be available, where you could take the train from Rockland all the way down,” he said.

Passenger service between Brunswick and Augusta is expected to begin in 2012 and between Brunswick and Lewiston in 2013, according to Page. Those tracks will have to be upgraded at a cost to be determined.

In response to local concerns about diesel exhaust in the neighborhood of the Rockland station from idling locomotives, Page said the railroad is just completing an upgrade of its emissions equipment by installing new fuel injectors in the two passenger locomotives.

“We didn’t have to do this, but we volunteered to do this,” he said, noting that last summer the train’s exhaust met plume opacity standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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