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Maine Eastern offering more passenger trips in 2014
If MEC does go year round, Amtrak should include MEC’s schedules in its system timetable.
I wonder if it would be feasible for Maine Eastern to initiate year round passenger service from Brunswick to Rockland. It seems like they are moving in that direction. Since Amtrak’s Downeaster appears to be a sustainable hit with passengers, a reliable year round connecting service to Rockland would seem possible from a revenue standpoint.
Also, it is nice to see that Maine Eastern is seeing an increase in freight revenues.
Why not a train between Boston and Rockland?
The second paragraph of the article starts: “Passengers arriving in Brunswick on the 12:25 p.m. northbound Downeaster may transfer to Maine Eastern’s 12:50 p.m. departure to Brunswick.”
Don’t you mean the Maine Eastern’s 12:50 departure to Rockland?
Fantastic! Cross platform connections at Brunswick for continued service to Rockland (and points in between)…Oops! the platform at Brunswick is only one sided because no one thinks outside the box to the fact that there actually could be two trains at a station at the same time! When the station and platform was designed (it is high level so great for handicapped and seniors) the layout could have been designed with a stub track on one or both sides of the station building plus a thru track which would accommodate a lay over train set towards Portland and a ready to depart local to Rockland.
(But hey: that is the way they build rest stops out on the Interstate with parking for only one car and one truck at a time…)
Instead of a practical platform and track layout tons of buck$ will have to be spent to build a 2 elevator equipped overpass building.
The current operator of the Brunswick-Rockland rail line contract only runs through 2014. Maybe, just maybe based on the success and potential for this route for passenger grouth (especially during Maine’s sumer/fall coastal tourist season, someone in the “other than” highway transportation arena in Maine has put forth the idea that there should be same train frequent Rockland-Portland-Boston service AND it should be in more up to date/faster/dependable equipment than “tourist train” rostered rolling stock and motive power. Not that I have anything against “heritage” or tourist trains but what is needed is modern passenger train service to attract ridership.
Why not look at running up to Houlton or Bangor? Buy a couple of surplus Budd RDCs to run on the MMA line between Sherbrooke or Vanceboro.
Very good that MEC woke up to connect with Amtrak. May the blossoms grow.
You can’t just say “Let’s go ahead and extend the train to Houlton or Bangor” or just extend Amtrak further to the north. Much work would have to be done not to mention FUNDING. Perhaps those options are being considered but someone has to pay. Meanwhile, this is a good step.
It’s ironic that the Downeaster doesn’t serve “downeast” Maine. Not even the Maine Eastern service to Rockland reaches downeast, which begins at Mt. Desert Island and extends to the Canadian border.
Right about the location of “Downeast” and unfortunately the tracks east of Ellsworth have been yanked. Meanwhile the highway to Eastport from Ellsworth is crowded with trucks hauling scrap metal and livestock to the port at Eastport.
Right out of the book Train Time by John Stilgoe.