Portland Passenger Rail

TIL that the current rail bridge across the harbor is not the same one that stood there in the 1940's and earlier. (Of course, unless you found a map that showed both you'd be hard-pressed to tell them apart.)
 
Per RR.net and confirmed by Amtrak employees...

The Downeaster, after months of rumors and some blowback from NNEPRA, is formally swapping out Amfleet coaches for surplus Midwestern Horizon cars. The interior livery is very similar, but the Horizons have harsh commuter rail-style lighting, no automatic doors, and an established rep for door problems during cold weather. They'll start getting added to sets one by one, so there'll be weeks to a couple months of mixed Amfleet+Horizon consists before they go all-Horizon. Cars will be shipped in/out of Boston the typical route for Downeaster equipment swaps: via Albany and extra non-revenue cars attached to the Lake Shore Ltd.

I guess start pining for the Airo cars in about 5 years, because this is somewhat of a downgrade.
 
Replace maybe one car with one like this and make it reserved seating with a $15 per seat upcharge. Create an app purchase and delivery system for food and drink like the airlines do, for the entire train, with more and higher priced offerings. The Downeaster has potential to bring people up from Boston, and not just round trips by Mainers. This car would not need overhead storage. There are ways to increase revenue without having to invest a lot of initial capital. I'd find a private company to partner with, one that knows how to make money. Call it "The Downeaster Sky Car."

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alaska-railroad-passenger.jpgcar-11192617.jpg
 
Per freight employee scuttlebutt on RR.net. . .

Finger Lakes RR is apparently about to file to terminate its operating agreement on the Rockland Branch. This is because the freight traffic has pretty much been eradicated by the closure of the huge Dragon Cement plant in Thomaston, leaving only a handful of cars per month from two insignificant-zit customers left. They can't hope to break even on their operating agreement without the cement traffic, so they're triggering an escape clause. This is a potentially mortal blow to seasonal passenger service Brunswick-Rockland, as Finger Lakes was going to operate that as well (it's already a year late in starting because the ex-Texas Budd RDC DMU's they acquired had mechanical problems that required them to be returned to sender). It'll be up to MEDOT to pick up the pieces and try to re-bid the rights. But it's very unlikely that they'd get a two-fer like Finger Lakes' original bid for freight and passenger rights, because only a homeless-person's operation would be interested in Rockland sans cement traffic. Shame, because the line is in good enough condition for passenger speeds.
 
So with NNEPRA looking for Amtrak to take over passenger service on the Rockland Branch, what are the options for MaineDOT? Is there someone they can contract with to handle MOW if there's no freight traffic? What do they need to do for dispatching?
 
markhb said:
So with NNEPRA looking for Amtrak to take over passenger service on the Rockland Branch, what are the options for MaineDOT? Is there someone they can contract with to handle MOW if there's no freight traffic? What do they need to do for dispatching?
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There are independent railroad services organizations that do Maintenance of Way and dispatching. R.J. Corman Railroad Group is one that gets subcontracted for jobs on state-owned lines in several Northeastern states. It's also not far-fetched to see CSX picking up the 2 remaining freight customers on a shotgun trackage rights agreement if the price is low enough; they've got fast track all the way from Portland, and they'd only have to operate the first half of the Rockland Branch to serve the remaining carloads they already take as far as Brunswick. All easily doable within a local job's crew shift, so their operating costs might be low enough to support the meager carloads. I doubt the branch is going to go completely out-of-service in the interim, though the east end might be collecting some rust while they sort this out.

I know NNEPRA has long wanted Amtrak to do Rockland, but how badly does Amtrak want it in return??? Finger Lakes got the contract in the first place because they gave a more ambitious service proposal than Amtrak's very conservative one, and that 2022 deal plugged a vacuum in the planning after the Amtrak proposal was placed on indefinite hold in 2021. They'd pretty much have to do up new negotiations from scratch. If Amtrak's current interest remains cool, it might take another excursion operator being imported...one that probably isn't as well-furnished with resources as Finger Lakes was.

MEDOT's got a lot of work to do to try to salvage something here.
 
From April's NNEPRA Board of Directors meeting, as reported in the May meeting briefing materials:
Patricia reported that there have been no updates on the Rockland service but noted that NNEPRA and Amtrak have been working diligently to develop and operating plan and satisfy necessary regulatory requirements. A meeting is scheduled later in the week with Maine DOT to discuss the project. Mr. Nate Moulton commented that the landscape has changed given that Dragon Cement, the major freight customer on the Rockland Branch, has closed. Negotiations with Amtrak and the host railroad will inform the feasibility of the project.
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So the idea here is to save the few Brunswick passengers 15 minutes of travel time for each direction, along with the $973,000 in added costs, in exchange for moving the station at a cost of millions and making the immediate access option for Concord Coach somewhat of a pain in the A**?
 
NNEPRA’s preference for site 3 is expected but disappointing. Site three is at least .5 miles from Congress street- the spine of METRO’s bus service featuring 15 minute frequencies. Site three is the least pedestrian friendly, despite assertions otherwise, as there are few residences and businesses to easily walk to or from. Site three is a baffling preference for an agency that provides public transportation in that it encourages train riders to drive to the station.

What we needed was vision and systems thinking. What we got was a decision that prioritizes the status quo. As a regular Downeaster rider, I’m not looking forward to waiting around for delayed trains or catching late night trains at the proposed location.
 
2-car platforms for 5-car consists at the busiest non-Boston stop on the route is not exactly doing good service to time savings. The dwell penalty at Portland for having to shuffle through the interiors of multiple cars to get to the exits is going to be a bit over-long with that setup.

Also, they can't do full-high platforms on both tracks with no freight passing solution. CSX would never allow that on their property given the quantity of high-and-wide traffic that runs north of Rigby Yard. Either it'll need a freight passing track or a gauntlet track (probably a passing track) put into the design.


Doesn't seem like a lot of overall thought went into that Option 3 render.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
NNEPRA presentation on the Union Station siting alternatives: https://www.nnepra.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-08-13-Portland-Train-Station-Slides.pdf

Public comments are welcome until Aug. 27.
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That says they want to keep open the option to run east-west services through the new station, too, I guess along the line to Westbrook. But, really? That sounds pretty far fetched. The only new service I've ever heard proposed is to Lewiston/Auburn, but that's north.

(Tangentially, did anything ever happen with the proposals to do some commuter service for LA to Portland?)
 
ritchiew said:
That says they want to keep open the option to run east-west services through the new station, too, I guess along the line to Westbrook. But, really? That sounds pretty far fetched. The only new service I've ever heard proposed is to Lewiston/Auburn, but that's north.
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Yeah, the case for east-west is hella weak. In addition to Westbrook being too short to serve enough catchment to properly amortize its costs (just run a damn express bus), there's an increasingly high chance that the whole Mountain Branch is going to be a rail trail in due time. The state's already entertaining ripping out all the derelict track from Westbrook to Fryeburg, so there's never going to be any thru traffic. There's only one small customer left on the branch now that the SAPPI paper mill's siding has gone disused (with paved-over grade crossing temporarily severing the mill from any resumed service), and that lone customer (a propane dealer) is being squeezed on all sides by Rock Row mixed-use redevelopment. It's only a matter of time before the propane dealer chooses...or is encouraged by some CSX sweetener...to relocate somewhere along the mainline, and then that'll be it for the branch all points west of PTC.

Option 1 would work just fine for east-west service if they installed the long-provisioned northbound wye leg on Mountain Jct. But NNEPRA's so in for Option 3 that they sandbagged that possibility in their weightings. It's also disappointing that they're making such a big deal about the Congress St. grade crossing being such a traffic management nightmare but aren't giving any thought to grade-separating it with a rail bridge. The crossing only exists because Old Union Station's platforms used to abut it. It's the worst crossing in Portland and has no reason to exist anymore.
 
With limited knowledge but ambitious ideas, would this group like to see the renderings I drew up through SketchUp of Union Station? It’s time for Portland to right the ship with Union Station and to stop doing the minimum required for these big opportunities! If there’s some interest I can share some renderings of how Union Station could be an innovative mixed use development/train station. Also, feel free to message me directly so I don’t interrupt the real talk going on here. Thanks all!
 
I know it’s far fetched, but I feel Portland is still somehow undervalued and not progressing as quickly as it’s neighbors in New England because of this “let’s do the minimum required” and “I’m scared of change” mindset. Portland is so much better than a couple platforms with a pedestrian bridge!!
I appreciate you guys for liking my proposed idea to share this rendering. It’s certainly not perfect and I’m not even 100% sold on it either, there are plenty of improvements, additions, or subtractions I’d make to this rendering after completion. BUT after that beautiful old station was brought down, nothing besides a sketchy shopping plaza has risen. These renderings are also to show the volume you could fit on top of a train station. Look at Boston! They have stations all over the city with communities around or on top of them. Portland is not far away and needs to start seeing that.
This brings new life, opportunity, and connectivity to our one-of-a-kind city.
Enjoy! Thanks all.
 

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F-Line to Dudley said:
Also, they can't do full-high platforms on both tracks with no freight passing solution. CSX would never allow that on their property given the quantity of high-and-wide traffic that runs north of Rigby Yard. Either it'll need a freight passing track or a gauntlet track (probably a passing track) put into the design.
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Timely reminder that high-and-wide freights do trawl Maine. A CSX Mountain Branch train with high-and-wide cars mis-directed from Rigby Yard took the PTC station track today and ended up ripping down part of the platform canopy. Multiple-level fuck-up, as CSX is supposed to take the passing track not the platform track and the Mountain Branch's propane customer doesn't take high-and-wide loads (gas tanker cars are much smaller) so the offending cars were probably leftovers from some other deliveries the Portland local was making on some other line.
 
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