Seasonal passenger trains will no longer stop in Lincoln County after the Maine Department of Transportation chose not to renew the operating lease held by Maine Eastern Railroad Sept. 2.
Maine Eastern Railroad, which is owned by Morristown & Erie Railway, has offered seasonal passenger service from Rockland to Brunswick since 2003. During that time, the train also stopped in Wiscasset, said Rudy Garbely, the marketing and logistics manager for Morristown & Erie.
In summer 2013, residents of Newcastle started having discussions about the possibility of asking Maine Eastern to add a stop at the Academy Hill Road station, Newcastle Town Administrator Lynn Maloney said.
At the time, Maine Eastern was in the process of moving the Wiscasset station to increase visibility, Garbely said.
“When we were working in Wiscasset, we had some leftover components that allowed us to construct the stop in Newcastle,” Garbely said.
By November 2013, Maine Eastern agreed to add a regular stop in Newcastle for summer 2014, returning passenger train service to the area for the first time in 55 years.
To prepare for the return of the train service, the town reached out to Mark Doe, of Newcastle, who owns the Academy Hill Road station. Doe agreed to allow the town to once again use the building as the station.
Newcastle Road Commissioner Steve Reynolds said a lot of work went into preparing the station for use, including improving the parking lot and the construction and hanging of a map showing train and trolley stops. Reynolds said students from Lincoln Academy also pitched in by painting the train station.
In conjunction with the train stop, the Twin Villages also partnered with County Coach Charters, of Nobleboro, to provide transportation by trolley from the train stop to downtown Newcastle and Damariscotta, as well as Boothbay Harbor. In 2015, the trolley service expanded and added a trip to Pemaquid Point, offered only on Sundays.
Maloney said the town hopes to keep the trolley service running, however, it is currently unknown if that is a cost-efficient option.
“We don’t have the final numbers from this year yet, but the excursions to Boothbay and Pemaquid Point have been doing fairly well,” Maloney said.
The train and trolley committee has not met since news of the discontinuation of passenger service broke, however, Maloney said the group has been in contact by email and has expressed disappointment at the turn of events.
“It’s really disheartening,” said Maloney. “We spent so much time trying to get everything together to make this happen and for it to just end after two years is really sad.”
Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission Economic and Community Development Director Mary Ellen Barnes echoed Maloney’s statement.
“We’re dismayed we’ve lost a partner in providing passenger service not only to locals, but also to those not from the area,” Barnes said.
Central Maine & Quebec Railway will take over the line starting Jan. 1, 2016. According to a press release, the company currently has no plans to continue the passenger service on the Rockland line next year, however, Barnes remains “pragmatically hopeful” there’s a possibility the service could return in the future.
“My hope is that in a few months, regional chambers of commerce, the Twin Villages Alliance, and members of the community can meet with the state and the new line regarding possible continuation,” Barnes said.
The rest of Maine Eastern railway’s 2015 planned excursion trips will continue as scheduled and will conclude on Oct. 31.
