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Maine Eastern cuts excursion service
The article is confusing.
Amtrak Downeaster arrives in Brunswick at 12:20 pm (having departed Boston at 9:05 am), and at 8:20 pm.
Amtrak Downeaster departs Brunswick at 7:05 am and 7 pm.
Hopefully, when the new Brunswick layover facility is built, there will be more reasonable train times to facilitate connections to the Maine Eastern…
The article is confusing.
Amtrak Downeaster arrives in Brunswick at 12:20 pm (having departed Boston at 9:05 am), and at 8:20 pm.
Amtrak Downeaster departs Brunswick at 7:05 am and 7 pm.
Hopefully, when the new Brunswick layover facility is built, there will be more reasonable train times to facilitate connections to the Maine Eastern…
Anyone who didn’t know this was coming was either fooling themselves or not paying attention. Any who didn’t want to admit that Patricia Quinn and her NNEPRA have made an utter botch of the Portland-Brunswick extension needs to face up to that reality now.
Let me count the ways:
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No maintenance facility at Brunswick at startup to allow for overnight storage and servicing of locomotives and cars.
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Referring to the above, full service of at least 4 trains each way daily, and preferably 5, would not be possible until far into the future, if ever.
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New wye connection at Portland, to allow head-on movements to/from the Portland station for the Boston-
Brunswick trains at startup, not built. -
Brunswick station not designed for cross-platform connections to MERR even though that connection was being touted as one of the benefits of extending Downeaster Service.
My advice to all the stakeholders up in the Portland-Brunswick area: Pull off the Brunswick trains until the supporting infrastructure is in place to allow for 5 trains daily in and out of Brunswick. Build the “island” platform at Brunswick to allow connectivity with MERR. Fire Patricia Quinn and get someone to head up NNEPRA who knows what they are doing.
Apparently Gordon Page was unable to navigate the Amtrak system timetables online to determine the Downeaster’s schedule.
For Mike Shapps info the delay in the layover facility was two fold. One is Nimby opposition first claiming the fumes would danage their lives and then when the building to fully enclose three train sets ws proposed the Nimbys again have fought against it claiming the building would depress the value of their homes.
Next there was no money available to build the building once it had been aproved. There is also no money available for the Wye connection at the Portland terminal. They had applied for Federal Funding but that was rejected so they had to look elsewhere for the funding.
Two trains a day may not be the greatest traffic generator but if the load factors exceed projections on just the two round trip runs then it bodes well for the rest of the runs.