ROCKLAND – Trackside Station in Rockland will see train passengers arriving and departing once again next spring. Representatives of the rail service Downeaster have approached Rockland officials with a Boston to Rockland route, according the City Manager Tom Luttrell during the Monday, Nov. 13 City Council meeting.

In the days prior to the city council meeting, Luttrell met with Patricia Quinn of Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, and learned of the Downeaster’s plans for bringing rail service back to Rockland.

Train passengers in Boston will board the Downeaster at 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon, arriving in Rockland around 10:30 p.m. Trains will then head back to Boston “probably Sunday,” Luttrell said. 

The pilot program will start in May and ‘test the waters’ through the summer and into October. In the process, the Downeaster will see if the activity and the customer load will be sustainable and worthy of year-round operations. 

In the near future, the train’s organization plan to meet with council members to review the train’s schedule, and what is needed from the city.

“Basically, the rundown for City responsibility will be to put insurance on the terminal, maintaining the terminal, and they would like to see lights at the platform, since the train will be coming in at 10:30,” Luttrell said.

In October 2015, a different company, Maine Eastern Railway, permanently ended excursion services between Rockland and Brunswick at a time when the railway, owned by the Morristown and Erie Railway of New Jersey, was taken over by the Central Maine and Quebec Railway.

See our previous article:

Passenger train excursions between Rockland and Brunswick end soon