The Bowdoin Orient

December 8, 2000
Volume CXXXII, Number 12

Portland to see Amtrak in April

by BELINDA J. LOVETT, NEWS AND FEATURES EDITOR

   After ten years of delays, Portland may finally hear passenger train whistles as early as April of next year when Amtrak service is expected to arrive.
   Michael Murray, executive director of Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, said that his organization is focusing on an April 2001 startup when it will inaugurate service from Boston's North Station to Portland.
    The route will be 114 miles long and will include stops in Haverhill, Massachusetts; Exeter, New Hampshire; Dover, New Hampshire; Wells, Maine; and Saco, Maine. The train will also stop at the University of New Hampshire at Durham on weekends and at Old Orchard, Maine, during the summer. In total, the trip from Boston to Portland should take approximately two and a half hours and cost between $30 and $40 round trip.
    When asked about service to Brunswick, Murray said, "Plans, which I believe to be realistic, are underway now to make the connection go north…to Brunswick." This connection may not come anytime soon, though, as Murray said the goal was to reach Brunswick in April of 2003.
    This is a full year and a half later than a previous estimate. In an article in the November 5, 1999 issue of the Orient, Murray had estimated that Amtrak service would come to Brunswick as early as late 2001.
    When questioned about the wait for train service into Maine, Murray admitted, "There have been a series of delays over the past ten years."
    Brunswick Town Manager Don Gerrish said that one of those delays was in Boston. "[Getting train service into Maine] was a problem because of the Big Dig."
    Another question yet to be addressed is that of a Brunswick train station. The lot intended for the station is across the railroad tracks from Shop 'n Save, next to the McLellan Building.
    Because of the delay of Amtrak service, though, the town has not made any concrete plans for the construction of the station. "We want to plan what we do with an understanding of the time frame," Gerrish said.