Completion of a layover facility in Brunswick will enable the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority to add one more Downeaster southbound stop and another northbound stop in Freeport.

Patricia Quinn, executive director of the the rail authority, which manages the Amtrak Downeaster, said that the third round trip out of Freeport will begin on Nov. 21 – just in time for the town’s busy holiday shopping season. The weekday southbound departure will be at 11:15 a.m., while the northbound trip out of Boston will arrive in town at around 8:45 p.m. On weekends, the southbound train will remain a late-morning departure from Freeport, but the nortbound trip from Boston won’t get into town until about 1:30 a.m., Quinn said.

Quinn said that the late-morning southbound Amtrak train leaving Freeport will work well for people visiting from the Boston area.

“One of the things we found out in Freeport is a lot of people from Boston like to overnight in Freeport,” she said. “That’s why this 11:15 a.m. departure will be great.”

Quinn said that the Amtrak layover facility in Brunswick, which was opposed by a group of residents, will make the new Freeport stops possible.

“It’s a place the trains can stay overnight,” she said. “Right now they all overnight in Portland. That’s why we’re able to add more service for the area, despite having no more trains.”

A citizen oversight board of the Maine Department of Environment Protection last year rejected an appeal of a stormwater permit issued for an Amtrak train layover facility in Brunswick. The Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition, a citizen’s group opposing construction of the maintenance and layover facility for Downeaster trains, appealed the permit granted in July. The group unsuccessfully argued there were “fundamental flaws” in the DEP’s permitting process, including deficiencies in groundwater and soil modelling.

The Board of Environmental Protection, however, unanimously denied the appeal and sided with DEP staff, which had recommended the permit.

And sometime in 2018 – for a totally different reason – the Downeaster will have five roundtrips in Freeport. Quinn said that the addition of a four-mile section of track through Falmouth and Cumberland will facilitate the added service. As it is, one track between Brunswick and Portland is used for both passenger and freight trains. The Northern New England Passenger Rail Service will install siding parallel to the track now in use, allowing trains to pass each other.

“The passing track will be constructed in two years,” Quinn said.

According to numbers provided by Amtrak on the Downeaster’s website, ridership levels from Boston to Brunswick are on the upswing this year. Last year, from July to May, ridership was 418,868, compared to 431,318 this year. Those numbers are not broken down by station stops, and Quinn was on vacation this week and unable to provide more details.

The Antrak Downeaster arrives in early September at the Brunswick layoff facility, which will be completed in November and facilitate a third round trip in Freeport.