ABOARD THE DOWNEASTER

Freighted with VIP passengers and loaded with regional expectations, Amtrak’s Downeaster pulled into its Brunswick terminus Thursday afternoon five hours after leaving Causeway Street in Boston for the inaugural ride north.

The locomotive’s arrival marked the culmination of a project that began in 1989 when a group of railroad buffs wondered if passenger rail service could be restored to northern New England.

That group eventually became TrainRiders/Northeast, and did much of the preliminary work to open the switches for Amtrak and Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority.

U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D- 1st District, called Wayne Davis, chairman of TrainRiders/ Northeast, the “father of the Downeaster.”

“Wayne stands out over all,” Pingree said Thursday during ceremonies at Freeport Station. “Back in 1988, he had a bad travel experience. While most of us go home and complain, Wayne took his complaint to a whole new level.”

With carefully timed stops at each station, riders and onlookers were regaled Thursday with the beatbox moves of Portland’s Red Hot & Ladylike while confetti cannons popped like champagne corks.

This morning, however, the ride was more typical of the realities of public transit. Approximately 60 people waited as the first Downeaster due to depart Brunswick Station with passengers came more than an hour late as switches at road crossings malfunctioned.

At least one disgruntled passenger — upset her work schedule had been upended — vowed to find other ways to get to Boston than the 7:05 a.m. Downeaster.

But on Thursday’s trip, speeds reached 79 mph as the Downeaster crested through Scarborough Marsh, then slowed for a 12-minute stop in Portland before heading to Freeport. The train rolled past grazing cattle, which shared their pastures with locals snapping pictures of the historic run.

Ninety-one-year-old Nelson Soule, the last station master in Freeport before the railway shut down in the 1960s, rode beside his wife, Margaret.

“I don’t know how it came about, but here I am,” he mused.

Soule operated telegraph machines during his career on the railroad: “Back then I used to type in Morse code, and for the Canadian National Railroad I used international code.”

Rail service has come a long way since the days of dots and dashes: Thursday’s celebratory ride was accompanied by ringtones and notification chimes as passengers checked messages and answered phone calls via 3G and Wi-Fi.

“I hope it’s real successful,” Soule said. “It ought to be.”

It’s been a long wait, but all who have been involved in the expansion say they are excited to see the two-year, $38 million railway expansion finally come to fruition.

“Not only is the train practical and green — so green — but it’s also fun and a great tourism draw,” said Roxanne Eflin, senior program director of National Trust Main Street Center, which coordinates programs such as Main Street Bath, Main Street Brunswick and Main Street Freeport. “These communities are ready and vibrant and have a lot to offer train riders.”

Eflin was one of 30 invited guests who took a chartered bus from Brunswick Station at 9:40 a.m. to meet the train, and join other guests of the inaugural ride, in Wells. Eight of Brunswick’s nine town councilors also attended.

“It’s a whole-town effort,” said District 6 councilor Margo Knight. “This is going to be an economic development engine, with people coming down from Augusta and Lewiston/Auburn to get on the train. What’s really special is that the station is right in the middle of town. You can get off the train and walk everywhere.”

Passengers of Thursday’s ceremonial ride were joined by Pingree and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who both gave short speeches in Freeport before boarding once again for Brunswick, 15 minutes down the gauge.

“The Downeaster has a 93 percent customer satisfaction rating. That’s the mirror opposite of Congress,” Snowe said. “I think we could take some advice from Amtrak.”

Joining the party in Freeport were former governors John Baldacci and Angus King of Brunswick, an independent U.S. Senate candidate.

Thursday’s first trip was cause for optimism. Advance bookings for travel during the first weekend of Downeaster service to Brunswick have spiked, according to Patricia Quinn, executive director of Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority.

Weekend ridership is always bolstered by walk-up ticket purchasers, Quinn said. With that trend in mind, combined with the advance reservations, she expected huge ridership numbers for the inaugural weekend.

The Times Record newsroom fielded several calls from readers inquiring about train’s arrival time and whether photographs of the event, captured by staff photographers, would be available for purchase.

But not everybody is happy about the arrival.

One Bouchard Drive resident, whose house is a few hundred feet from the tracks near Pleasant Street, characterizes the locomotives as an “environmental mess.”

In a recent letter to The Times Record, Robert Morrison lamented that “perhaps the diesel fumes plus the noise plus the …vibrations are all the ravings of a bunch of neighbors who don’t wish to have this environmental mess in their backyards — and (in) houses and the lungs of their children.”

Air quality and emissions data requested of the Environmental Protection Agency were not made available to The Times Record by deadline.

Technical specifications provided by General Electric Transportation, which builds the P42 Genesis locomotive — Amtrak’s main workhorse in the Northeast Corridor — claim the engine is 22 pecent more fuel-efficient than its predecessor.

“All of the equipment we use is Amtrak and meets all federal guidelines for emissons,” said Quinn. “Anecdotally, I can tell you it’s not harmful, that it’s much cleaner than what comes out of a bus or a truck.”

The Downeaster made its first run between Portland and Boston on Dec. 15, 2001 and 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, adding about 36,000 passengers each year. Over time, there will be more stops. The rail service also has promised to add more trains to its daily Brunswick service.

Funded with $38.3 million in federal stimulus dollars, expanding the service required improvements to more than 30 miles of rail and rehabilitation of 36 crossings.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com rshelly@timesrecord.com