Congressional budget squeezes have Amtrak looking for individual states to assume part of the rail service’s operating costs along their routes.

Maine — which has funded its status as both a terminus and departure point for the Amtrak Downeaster since its inception 12 years ago — is not likely to be affected, said Patricia Quinn, executive director of Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority.

The Portland-based agency manages the Downeaster’s passenger rail service between Brunswick and Boston.

“The Downeaster has always been a state-supported service,” Quinn wrote to The Times Record in an email this week. “Maine pays Amtrak to operate the service.”

“When we first heard about this three or four years ago, it was no shock. Maine’s been paying for it all along,” added Wayne Davis, chairman of Train Riders/Northeast. “But for a city like Wilmington, Del., where they’ve had trains stopping every hour for 100 years, they take it for granted. It’s a throwback to the time in this country when all the railroads were privately owned.”

It would be nice if the pass-through states would chip in some cash, Davis said. But he’s not hopeful.

“It’s a Maine train,” he said. “They pay nothing. It’s a contract between Maine and Amtrak.”

The Downeaster’s operating budget for Fiscal Year 2013 is $18.3 million. The federal government pays a little less than half — $7.6 million — to a state match of $1.9 million, according to Sue Moreau, planning and transit manager for Maine Department of Transportation.

The remaining balance of $8.9 million is generated by NNEPRA through ticket sales, food service, advertising and endorsements, as well as other revenue sources.

No word yet has leaked from Augusta whether Gov. Paul LePage intends to reduce the state’s matching funds for the train’s service.

The country’s only national rail carrier, Amtrak is a consistent and historical money loser. It relies on budgetary handouts from Congress to cover yearly revenue shortfalls. But fiscal conservatives are pressuring the railroad to reduce its losses, so Amtrak has asked state governments to pay for all local short-haul runs of fewer than 750 miles.

Twenty-eight such routes through 19 states — particularly in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Midwest — are on the block. Each affected state has an Oct. 1 deadline for deciding whether to fund services or lose them.

Virginia and Pennsylvania already have agreed to take over funding.

The Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, reported that 15 states have assumed funding for 21 train routes and paid Amtrak $180 million for them in 2012 alone.

The Northeast line — connecting Washington, D.C., to Boston through New York City and some of the nation’s most populous areas — is Amtrak’s most profitable service, and is likely to be exempt from the request.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com

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