Amtrak’s Downeaster is ready to roll northward to Freeport and Brunswick with the service kicking off on Nov. 1, ahead of Thanksgiving travel and holiday shopping, officials said today.
Banners announcing the new service and schedule adjustments were going up in stations along the route today, said Patricia Quinn, director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority. Tickets for the travel to Freeport and Brunswick go on sale on Oct. 1.
“It’s a huge milestone,” Quinn said today. “Really, the service expanding to Freeport and Brunswick was always part of the plan. When we inaugurated the service in 2001, it was supposed to happen in a couple of years. To make it finally happen is pretty exciting.”
The Downeaster is coming off a record year with 528,292 passengers.
Initially, two of the five daily roundtrips between Portland and Boston will travel to Brunswick. The expanded service is expected to add 36,000 more passengers each year, Quinn said.
Joe Boardman, Amtrak president and CEO, said the expanded rail service “coincides with record ridership demand on both the Downeaster and rail travel throughout the country.”
Expanding the Downeaster northward to Freeport, home to L.L. Bean’s flagship store and outlet shopping, and Brunswick, home of Bowdoin College, required improvements to more than 30 miles of rail, rehabilitation of 36 crossings and construction of two station platforms. Remaining track work will be completed in weeks.
Most of the track upgrades were funded through $38.3 million in federal stimulus dollars.
“We are proud to deliver this expanded service on schedule and on budget,” said Martin Eisenstein, chairman of the Northern New England Rail Authority’s board, who praised the partnership with the Federal Railroad Administration, Pan Am Railways, Amtrak and the Maine Department of Transportation.
The Downeaster currently serves eight communities between Boston and Portland: Old Orchard Beach, Saco and Wells in Maine; Dover, Durham and Exeter in New Hampshire; and Haverhill and Woburn in Massachusetts.
The Times Record Sustaining Sponsor
We believe a community must be informed to thrive. bowdoin.edu
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less