A Maine entrepreneur is
proposing to revive a defunct rail line for freight and passenger service
between Portland and the White Mountains region
of New Hampshire, with plans to extend the
line eventually to Vermont and Montreal.
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The driving force behind the project is David Schwanke,
president of Golden Eagle Rail Corp., a startup company.
Schwanke, 61, who lives in Norridgewock, moved to Maine a decade ago after
a career handling logistics in the motion picture industry. He said he is
waiting for the snow to melt so experts can examine the old Mountain Division
line, which runs from the Portland Transportation Center
to the New Hampshire
border in Fryeburg.
Schwanke said he would spend $7 million to $10 million to
replace railroad ties on the line to bring it up to the standards for many
short-line railroads.
He said the study is a necessary step before he can meet
with the Maine Department of Transportation, which owns the 45-mile section
from Westbrook to Fryeburg.
“We’re making sure our ducks are in a row before we jump
into a deep pond and find it deeper than we think it is,” Schwanke said.
The section between the Sappi mill in Westbrook and the New Hampshire border was
abandoned by Guilford Transportation Industries in 1983 and purchased by the
state in 1994.
Although the rail line provides the shortest route from Portland to points west of Chicago,
steep grades crossing the Appalachian Mountains in New Hampshire added to its costs. Guilford, which now operates as Pan Am Railways, concluded
it would be cheaper to send its westbound trains through Massachusetts.
Built in the late 1800s, the line once shuttled tourists
to grand Victorian hotels, including the Bay of Naples Inn in Naples,
the Crawford House in Crawford Notch, N.H., and the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, N.H.
The last passenger train ran in 1959.
Today, a section of the line in New Hampshire is used by the Conway Scenic
Railroad.
Schwanke said he would expand his railroad in stages,
starting with a freight service that would connect businesses in Maine with the Portland
waterfront and the national rail system through Pan Am Railway, which operates
a railway that extends to the Sappi mill in Westbrook. He said there are 15
companies in Maine
that could potentially use the freight service.
In the second phase, the line would extend to New Hampshire and bring passengers to the White Mountains. Schwanke said there would be ski trains
in the winter and excursion trains in the summer and autumn.
Eventually, the line would extend to St.
Johnsbury, Vt., where it would
link up with railroads in Vermont and Quebec that now have trains running to Montreal.
Upgrading the entire line would cost about $30 million,
Schwanke said. He said the freight service would be local, and that he doesn’t
intend to run freight between Montreal and Portland.
Reviving the Mountain Division line has been a goal of
local officials, who say it could move such commodities as gravel, propane and
wood pellets. It also could bring tourists to the Saco
River Valley
and the White Mountains, they said.
The biggest challenge would be creating agreements with
so many different entities, said Deborah Murphy, who formerly handled passenger
rail for the Vermont Rail System and is now working as a consultant for the
project. Murphy said the deal-making skills that Schwanke mastered in Hollywood should prove
useful.
Providing both freight and passenger service makes sense
because it raises more revenue, Murphy said, adding that there is strong demand
in Quebec for rail service to U.S. cities.
Schwanke said he also will seek corporate sponsors for
the passenger service, an idea that is new to the railroad industry.
Schwanke outlined his idea March 19 in Standish to
members of the Route 113 Corridor Committee, an economic development group in
the region.
One attendee, Don Marson, said that Schwanke is an
articulate public speaker but that his plans for reviving the line are unrealistic.
There appear to be too many obstacles to overcome, and it
would cost too much money to upgrade the rail line in Maine, said Marson, who
retired last year as vice president and general manager of the Maine Eastern
Railroad, which operates freight trains and summer excursion trains between
Brunswick and Rockland.
“I hate like hell to say it, but I don’t think it’s going
to be real until I see the money,” he said.
Chalmers “Chop” Hardenbergh, editor of Atlantic Northeast
Rails & Ports, a trade magazine, said he doubts there are enough potential
freight customers on the line to make it viable.
“I think we should be very skeptical,” he said.
Nate Moulton, director of the state’s industrial rail
access program for the Maine Department of Transportation, said the state is
always open to redeveloping its abandoned rail lines.
“That’s what we bought them for,” he said.
When he meets with Schwanke later this spring, Moulton
said, he wants to see a “real business plan” that shows the railroad can safely
provide service to customers and make enough money to survive. He noted that a
2006 state study concluded that there wasn’t enough freight traffic to sustain
such an operation.
Although the state at times will make capital investments
in a state-owned rail line, Moulton said, it won’t subsidize freight railroads.
“We expect them to make a living,” he said.
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