Any plans to extend Amtrak’s Downeaster train service to Rockland have been derailed for now.
Midcoast Railservice announced it was terminating the lease agreement with the Maine Department of Transportation to operate the Rockland Branch railroad. The subsidiary of Finger Lakes Railway began running freight between Rockland and Brunswick in 2022 and has since held the operational rights for the 57-mile state-owned rail system.
Midcoast had been implementing plans for a passenger service between Rockland and Brunswick — working over the past few years with Amtrak, the Maine Department of Transportation and Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which operates the Downeaster.
But last fall, Midcoast lost its largest customer in Dragon Cement in Thomaston after the plant announced it would cease cement production. Ninety-three percent of Midcoast’s freight traffic in 2023 came from Dragon Cement according to George Betke, Midcoast vice president and Finger Lakes Railway co-founder.
“[Midcoast Railservice] is nowhere near sustainable at the current level [for freight demand],” Betke said. “We had identified a couple of prospects for locating new freight customers, but those don’t happen overnight. And our well is running dry, so we felt that withdrawal was the only logical conclusion for us.”
After losing Dragon’s business, Midcoast quickly looked to reclaim the lost income through the passenger service. In early 2023, the Maine Department of Transportation budgeted $3 million for a two-year pilot test to provide passenger service to Rockland. Later that summer, Midcoast tested the capability further by offering hour-long “Coastliner Excursions” passenger trips which departed from Rockland.
Betke said Midcoast struggled to find coverage for the $325 million insurance plan required by Amtrak for passenger service.
“The passenger service alone, in my opinion, without the freight would never be self-sustaining without public subsidization,” Betke said. “That’s certainly been the experience elsewhere throughout the country.”
With the Rockland Branch lacking an operator, any passenger service to Rockland would depend on the Maine Department of Transportation for operation and funding. A spokesperson from the department said it’s working on finding a replacement.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
