Portland – Rockland Railway
| Portland ME – Rockland ME | |
|---|---|
| Route length: | 141 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Tracks: | 1 (formerly to Brunswick 2) |
| Owner: |
Portland – Brunswick: PAR Brunswick – Rockland: Maine |
| Passenger traffic: | Portland – Brunswick: AMTK |
| Freight traffic: |
Portland – Brunswick: PAR Brunswick – Rockland: CMQ |
The railway Portland Rockland is a railway line in Maine ( United States ). It is 141 kilometers long. The standard gauge route is operated today by the Pan Am Railways between Portland and Brunswick in freight traffic. The Maine Eastern Railroad currently operates freight services between Brunswick and Rockland and a scheduled passenger service in the summer half-year, which will be discontinued at the end of the 2015 season. From 2016, the Central Maine and Quebec Railway will operate freight traffic east of Brunswick. The Amtrak uses the Portland Brunswick section for three pairs of trains of high-speed train tender Downeaster with. A section of the original line in Bath and Woolwich with the railway ferry has been closed because it was made obsolete by the construction of a railway bridge over the Kennebec River .
history
Prehistory and construction
In the 1840s Maine began to be developed with railways. The Kennebec and Portland Railroad was founded to connect the Kennebec River , on which several industrial and port cities were located, to the largest city of Maine, Portland . The route should lead from Bath via Brunswick in the direction of Portland. The lines arriving in Portland from New York and Boston were built in standard gauge (1435 mm). For this reason, Kennebec & Portland also decided to use this gauge. Construction began in 1847 and the Bath to Yarmouth section went into operation on July 4, 1849. The eastern extension of the line towards Rockland was already planned at that time, and in August 1849 a rail company was founded, which was later renamed Knox and Lincoln Railroad . However, the construction of the line was not started at first.
In Yarmouth there was a transition to the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad , which ran to Portland, but on the colonial track (1676 mm). For this reason it was planned to set up a separate route parallel to Atlantic & St. Lawrence Build. The new route was to connect to the standard gauge York and Cumberland Railroad of Maine in Westbrook , and the trains could use this as far as Portland. In addition, a connection to South Portland was built from the terminal station in Portland, which was located on Preble Street , in order to establish a rail connection in the direction of Boston. However, this connection was only used in freight traffic. Both new buildings went into operation in 1851. Shortly afterwards, a branch line to the north was also opened from Brunswick .
Passengers arriving at Commercial Street Station from Boston in Portland had to cross the entire city to reach Preble Street Station. They could only do this by rental cabs or on foot, the first horse-drawn tram did not run until 1863. For this reason, the desire arose to introduce the trains of Kennebec & Portland directly to Commercial Street station. In 1861 the line was therefore extended beyond Westbrook to there. The connection line to South Portland was shut down at the same time, part of it went into the newly built section of the line. However, until 1875 passenger trains only ran to Preble Street.
In the meantime the extension to Rockland had also been built. Construction began in 1868, and on November 1, 1871, the line to Rockland was completed. A three-kilometer-long port railway was also built in Rockland around 1883.
business
From 1874 the Portland – Bath section was owned by the Maine Central Railroad (MEC), which expanded it to two-track between Portland and Brunswick. With the opening of Portland Union Station on the Portland – Bath railway line in 1888, passenger trains from Bath and Brunswick ended at this station. A short section of the route south of the new central station was also used by trains from Boston. The section from Commercial Street Station to Boston & Maine Junction has only been operated in freight traffic since then. In 1891 Maine Central also leased the Knox & Lincoln Railroad and acquired the railway ten years later.
Not only did the trains to Augusta and Rockland run on the route, but also the trains on the route via Lewiston to Bangor for the first few kilometers from Portland . In the heyday of the railroad, several major express trains ran the route, including the Gull from Boston to Halifax .
On October 24, 1927, a bridge over the Kennebec River was opened in Bath . The outdated railway ferry to Woolwich could cease operations. Since the bridge was built around a kilometer south of the railway ferry, a short stretch of new line was built on the eastern bank. Bath train station also had to be rebuilt. The section in Woolwich from the ferry station to Woolwich train station was in operation until around 1970. At the end of the 1930s, the Rockland port railway was shortened by about one kilometer.
After passenger traffic between Brunswick and Rockland had been discontinued on April 4, 1959, the Portland – Brunswick route followed on September 6, 1960. The second track between Portland and Brunswick was also no longer needed and was dismantled. After the bankruptcy of the Maine Central Railroad operated from 1981 the Guilford Transportation , from 2006 under the name Pan Am Railways , the route. The Brunswick – Rockland section was initially closed in 1984 and taken over by the state of Maine, but leased to the Maine Coast Railroad in 1990 , which resumed operations, including occasional excursion trains. In 2000 she had to cease operations for financial reasons. In 2003, the Morristown and Erie Railway leased this section, which has since operated it as the Maine Eastern Railroad . This also introduced the seasonal passenger traffic between Brunswick and Rockland. On November 1, 2012, passenger traffic also returned to the Portland-Brunswick route when the Amtrak express train company extended its Downeaster to Brunswick with three trips a day.
In 2015, freight traffic between Brunswick and Rockland was re-tendered by the Maine Department of Transportation. The Central Maine and Quebec Railway , which will start operating on January 1, 2016, was awarded the contract. Passenger traffic on this section will cease on October 31, 2015, and the rolling stock is to be brought to New Jersey.
Route description
The route begins in Portland, south of downtown, at Commercial Street Station. Today there is only a barely used freight yard here. The train leaves the station heading west and shortly afterwards turns north. It crosses the districts of Woodford and Deering and crosses the Presumpscot River shortly after the Portland city limits . The train continues to the northeast, crosses the Royal River shortly before Yarmouth and crosses the Portland – Island Pond railway line at Yarmouth station at the same level . The route continues northeast to Brunswick on the Androscoggin River . Here the routes branch off towards Farmington and Augusta . The rail line to Bath continues east and crosses the New Meadow River at New Meadows . Shortly thereafter, Bath terminus is reached. Today's route turns south shortly before to cross the Kennebec River . The old terminus, which was in operation until 1927, is nowhere to be seen.
East of the Kennebec River, the route initially turns north. After a few hundred meters the route of the old train joins the Woolwich ferry terminal. The route continues winding along the coast to Rockland. Several larger river bridges and a longer bridge over a bay near Wiscasset were needed to cross the waters that flow into the sea. In Rockland, just before the terminus, the two-kilometer-long port railway branches off. In Wiscasset, the railway line crossed the narrow-gauge Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway in the middle of Clarks Pond . The crossing station had a wooden platform that ran along both lines. The narrow-gauge railway ran on both sides of the intersection on a long wooden yoke bridge , the stilts of which are still visible today. The main line runs over a dam that was interrupted by a bridge east of the station.
passenger traffic
Initially, the route ran only trains to Bath and Augusta or Skowhegan, with trains in the direction of Augusta mostly also running shuttle trains between Brunswick and Bath. After the main line Cumberland – Bangor was completed , the Maine Central Railroad also ran to Cumberland. After the takeover of Portland & Kennebec by the MEC, most of the express trains went to Bangor via Brunswick and Augusta. In the beginning only local trains ran between Woolwich and Rockland, later these also carried passing cars to Boston.
After the start of the global economic crisis and with the onset of motorization, the number of passengers dropped significantly. From 1931 the trains from Rockland only ran to Brunswick. From this time onwards, through coaches from express trains from Boston were no longer handed over to Bath and Rockland. In April 1959, passenger traffic between Brunswick and Rockland ended, and in September 1960 also on the rest of the route.
In the 1990s, the Maine Coast Railroad operated tourist trains from Brunswick via Bath to Rockland. After operations had ceased in 2000, the Maine Eastern Railroad reintroduced the trains in 2003, which run as regular passenger trains from Wednesdays to Sundays during the summer months. Other trains run on a few days in December. Stopovers are in Bath and Wiscasset. At the end of the 2015 driving season, passenger traffic is to be discontinued on this section of the route. The Amtrak Downeaster has been operating from Boston to Brunswick via Portland since 2012 with a stop in Freeport. Three trains per day and direction are offered all year round.
literature
- George H. Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads. 2nd edition. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha WI 2000, ISBN 0-89024-356-5
- Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Mike Walker: SPV's comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. (2nd edition) Steam Powered Publishing, Faversham 2010, ISBN 1-874745-12-9 .
- ↑ Article in Trains Magazine (accessed September 9, 2015)
- ↑ Article in Trains Magazine (accessed September 9, 2015)
- ↑ Downeaster timetable from November 1, 2012 (PDF; 294 kB)