Bringing passenger rail services to Maine

Central Maine was once home to railway services that spanned across the state. Now, as Maine’s economy falters, some are considering revitalizing the passenger services, opening up the state to tourists with more efficient travel.

State Sen. Joe Baldacci sponsored a bill (LD 227) earlier this year to study extending rail services from Brunswick to Bangor, passing through Waterville and Augusta.

The Maine Rail Group has long advocated for a passenger rail that follows this model. 

“There had been passenger rails a long time ago, but the age of rail kind of went away when cars ascended nationally,” said City Counselor and biology professor Thomas Klepach in an interview with The Colby Echo. “Maine is super isolated, as it is on the edge of the map, so the interstate [highway] that runs in the state of Maine is kind of a terminal thing. All states get traffic that Maine does not because the [I-95] pretty much just serves Maine, in Maine.” 

Extending the rail services to nearby states would help those that make the daily commute to and from outside cities, ultimately increasing job opportunities. As there are limited job opportunities in Maine given how few industries remain, having an opportunity to work elsewhere would not only help individual Mainers but also the economy. 

“The thing that is appealing about living in Maine is the fact that it’s a beautiful state,”  Klepach stated. “It’s a really high quality of life, to live here in Maine, and it’s a low cost of living. The thing that’s preventing people from moving here is that there are no jobs in the state of Maine.

“There are few industries. The paper industry is a dying industry. Fisheries exist mostly on the coast, but they are sort of locked into families and fisheries have their struggles as well. So, who is going to move to Maine? It’s cold and most people don’t like that.”

He went on, “Someone would only want to live in the state of Maine because they like the outdoor lifestyle and its low cost of living, but prior to COVID [-19], people’s lives were about having a cheap, easy, and fast way of commuting.”

Klepach continued to discuss the benefits of the proposed transportation services. “The overall idea is that if we put in commuter rails, we can facilitate people who want to live in the state but need rapid commuter access for whatever reason. So it’s not just for vacations or if you want to take a trip to Boston, although there is that too. It’s not just serving Mainers, but as a way to draw people into Maine and to make Maine their home but are unable to rapidly connect with the rest of the country down the coast,” Klepach said.

Klepach also discussed how Mainers typically want to keep their state just as is, unchanged by newcomers or developments. Some Maine residents are against adding the railway services for this very reason.

“A lot of people in Maine do not want people from elsewhere moving into their state. They like being alone and that’s one of the reasons they live in Maine and they do understand that rail means development and it means that people are going to move in, so there’s a significant number of people that don’t actually want it,” Klepach stated. 

Although some Mainers raise concerns, the railway offers environmental benefits as well. 

“In general, rail makes sense in terms of carbon footprint. It’s a much smaller carbon footprint having 150 people on a train than having 150 cars making that same route,” Klepach said.

Ultimately, while not all residents are on board, Waterville could stand to benefit from having a railway service running in and out of the city, extending to the rest of Maine and beyond. 

~ Jenna Boling `24