My gut feeling is that those stops are part of the sweetheart deal NNEPRA has with the MBTA / Keolis / MassDOT to use their tracks (and slots in North Station) for cheap. Woburn may be low-ridership but it's capturing people who might live north of the city and who don't want to drive into town to catch a train north (and they aren't Boston commuters since the stop doesn't serve BON traffic), and if nothing else the Haverhill riders are paying for the privilege.
The "hotel train" has been discussed to death, if you want to look through the other threads where it's come up. It's pure vaporware that's been peddled for over 10 years now, resurfacing periodically in the news. Its finances/ridership projections/operations plan simply don't add up. At this point it smells of a scam.
I once had a conversation with Patrcia Quinn and she offhandedly said that the only segments where the DE could --theoretically-- go above 79 are Arundel-Wells and potentially Wells-Rollinsford with a curve rebuild. But those are fairly short segments and there's not much benefit to going that extra 10 mph.
www.pressherald.com
As a special service, this will flop and "derail" if it's the normal Amtrak cars (notice how they don't have pictures). It needs to be the ones with bigger windows and different seating options, or the way they do them for sightseeing trains in the Rockies or Switzerland. I don't want to be negative, but we all know that they have no real money to do this, and no money means nothing good. It sounds dreamy and romantic, but the reality is without the right train cars this won't work. Last summer I took a train from Zurich to Basel to see a friend (simply as a transportation option) and did not want to get off. The trains are new, modern, comfy, creatively configured, larger windows, etc.
They are actually using two Budliners. This type of service is tailor made for DMUs, and I suspect will work out well, given the incremental approach.
The FRA reformed its regulations back in 2018 which has allowed numerous agencies and Amtrak to purchase lighter European trains. Amtrak California purchased a few Stadler Hydrogen trains to run on the San Joaquins Route starting in 2026. So the it would be possible for the Mid Coast to buy Stadler or another DMU train.
There are no FRA-compliant DMU's except for the ancient Budds that can board at *both* high-level and low-level platforms. The only high-level boarding domestic make, Nippon-Sharyo's used on S.M.A.R.T. in California and Union-Pearson Express in Toronto, has no door traps for boarding at low platforms because of the placement of components on the undercarriage...meaning they can't be used anywhere on the Rockland Branch. And Nippon-Sharyo has since exited the U.S. market, so if they're even for sale anymore they wouldn't qualify for Buy America. The various Stadlers in-use stateside are all for 8-inch platforms and can't interface at all with a full-high like Brunswick.
You can have them make a high level DMU...low level platforms should be phased out anyway due to not being ADA complaint.
Both the intricacies of importing a brand-new make with design changes and/or implementing full-high or mini-high platforms on the Rockland Branch cost a wad of $$$$ that instantaneously prices this service out of ever happening. It's a self-own, not a solution.
The new Amtrak passenger trains coming soon to the Downeaster will at least have larger windows than the current ones. Although I don’t believe Amtrak has any single-deck view cars, they do have a superliner view car on western routes, which wouldn’t be compatible with DE route due to high level platforms.
