The trip continues…
Yesterday (Sunday) we moved up the coast from Portland to Rockland, Maine. This morning we begin a 4 day sailing trip on a historic windjammer along the Maine coast.
The tracks along US1 seemed to be in very good shape, but I anticipated no trains on a Sunday. Imagine my surprise when at Rockland I heard a train horn and around a curve appeared an F unit pulling a passenger train. The units actually were ex New Haven FL9s. The passenger train was from Brunswick to Rockland, arriving at 250pm and departing at 320pm. There were FL9s on both ends of the train.
The service runs Fr,Sa, and Su and is scheduled to leave after Amtrak arrives at Brunswick and scheduled to arrive back in Brunswick before the Amtrak departure.
This is not a 10mph operation, but the line is on welded rail and can run up to 59mph (obviously not signalled). But wait…there’s more! The ME operates a freight shuttle in Rockland between a cement company called Dragon to a barge transloading facility in the Rockland Bay. Loads of cement are railed about 5 miles (who says short haul railroading cannot work?) and then loaded on a barge for delivery to Boston, NYC, etc. The ticket agent at the Rockland depot indicated the shuttle operates several times a day.
This is a fascinating railroad…not what I expected. Unfortunately there is little time to explore as this morning we head out along the coast. No trains are expected.
Ed