 pcarrell wrote: |
| Hey Ryan....... 
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![Sign - Ditto [#ditto]](/trccs/emoticons/icon_smile_sign_ditto.gif)
Happy Birthday Ryan.
I don't mean to crash the party with this but umm.. If you could read the first paragraph of this news story and tell me what you think. and BTW Lewiston-Auburn does not have passenger rail service. If it did then you would be seening many pics of it.
[Passenger trains may roll in L-A
By Doug Fletcher
Lewiston Sun Journal January 13, 2000
Passenger rail service linking the Twin Cities with Quebec, other New England states and beyond could be a reality by 2003.
Transportation Commissioner John Melrose unveiled his vision for the service, which would include local commuter runs, to area legislators Wednesday.
Melrose is asking for $10.5 million from the state's $250 million surplus to get the wheels turning. That would cover costs to bring Amtrak from Portland through Yarmouth, New Gloucester and into Auburn.
Another $7.5 million will be needed to upgrade tracks through Oxford County and on into Canada. The second round of funding would be sought in the next legislative session.
Besides enhancing transportation, Melrose said the rail corridor, much of it paralleling Interstate 95 and parts of the Maine Turnpike, would spur development in already built-up areas and would discourage urban sprawl.
"I'm most enthusiastic about passenger service," said Owen Wells, president of the Portland based Libra Foundation. The October Corp., Libra's real estate management company, has an option on the former Pineland Center in New Gloucester. Libra plans a multiuse development on Pineland's 200 acres that would mix for-profit businesses with nonprofit health and social service providers.
Wells said Libra, which spends about $15 million annually on projects embracing the philosophy of its founder, the late philanthropist, Elizabeth Noyce, would put up a depot for Pineland rail passengers. He encourages commuting by rail, he said...
Wells wasn't the only person hearing music in a train whistle.
Matt Jacobson, (former) president of the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad, called it "a good plan for Maine."
Melrose sees St. Lawrence & Atlantic playing a pivotal role in the extension of passenger rail service here. Amtrak, or another carrier, would use SL&A tracks from Portland to Auburn and on to Quebec. Jacobson said the line's tracks run to about 30 miles east of Montreal.
St. Lawrence stands to profit from the expansion, he noted, both with state funding to upgrade tracks to meet passenger service needs, as well as from payments from carriers using the rails.
More importantly, though, he said, the region is positioned to profit from the resumption of passenger service. It means commuters would have an option to increasingly congested highways, it would likely bring tourists to the region and other economic spinoffs in the form of businesses and services could be expected.
Melrose, too, saw the benefit of the commuter rail to easing highway congestion. Now, he said, 60,000 to 70,000 vehicles travel the highways next to the rail corridor. People in those cars would soon see the passing trains "as a moving billboard" offering an alternative to stop-and-go traffic, driving in foul weather and fighting for parking spaces.
Melrose said Maine is cooperating with New Hampshire to extend service from Portland to Nashua, then to Lowell and Worcester in Massachusetts. From there passengers could connect with service to Connecticut, New York, and points south, or Chicago and the West.
Those connections are needed, he said, because the Boston-to-Portland line will end at the Hub's North Station. Trains to Connecticut and New York and elsewhere leave from Boston's South Station. About a mile with no tracks separate the two terminals.
The $10.5 million Melrose seeks from this year's state surplus would pay for tracks and improvements in the Portland area, building a trestle across the Back Bay and laying line to connect with St. Lawrence & Atlantic's tracks near the B&M Bean plant. Some of the money would also pay for a train station in Yarmouth Village. Melrose envisions rehabilitating the village's historic existing depot for passenger use.
From Yarmouth the L-A route would head through New Gloucester with a stop at the proposed Pineland station and head into Auburn, possibly at an intermodal facility near the Auburn-Lewiston Airport.
From there a so-called "light line" could transport commuters to a terminal in either of the Twin Cities.
Melrose said he sees the airport location as a prime spot for the switch to the "light line" because air commuters could take advantage of the rail service as well.
From L-A, the commuter train would follow SL&A tracks into Oxford County and on to Quebec. ]