Maine Commuter Rail

Are DMUs in service anywhere in the U.S. at present?

Those built post-1970? Only a handful on WES in Oregon and Tri-Rail in Florida by a defunct manufacturer. The poorly-thought-out FRA rules make compliant DMUs very difficult to build, even while they're widely used in the rest of the world.

However, there's a lot of old Budd RDCs lying around, and someone in the Midwest has a business refurbishing them IIRC. They run well and last just about forever.

I'm not sure which this service intends to use.

BM6569 wrote:I attended a meeting tonight hosted by the MRTC and Sierra Club at the Danville Junction grange hall. They went over the plans and an update of where this project stands. They don't have a full cost estimate yet for how much this will all cost but plan to have another meeting in Jan so I think they will have them by then. What costs they did have were 67 million to restore the track from MP 0 in Portland (India St I believe) to Auburn (MP 29 as I recall). That includes the back cove trestle, which they had received two estimates of 8.8 and 10 million to restore it. I was surprised to see that a whole study had been done on that bridge, back in 2005 I believe. It was very detailed. Apparently the bottom of the pilings had been reinforced with concrete at some point so the bridge will not be falling apart anytime soon. On a bridge note, some engineers have told him that the former GT bridge between Auburn/Lewiston is still in good shape and can hold tracks again.
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I can get pdf copies of the any of the studies if I want. Just have to email them. I may ask for the bridge study as that looked interested when I was flipping thru it.

If you do get any of the PDF's, I would love to see copies if you could send them on to me. I'm surprised that the trestle is only 8-10 million; I'd love to know what sort of restoration that contemplates.

One of the studies I flipped through with maps of routes showed a wye drawn at the back cove trestle to connect with the Union Branch and onto PTC (two legs over the water, one the existing trestle). It was quite interesting to see that link because this service was not to connect with the Downeaster unless that connect would be used if trains ever came from Montreal.

Was that part of their proposal, or a map of the historical Portland Junction when the P&R (which would become the Union Branch) did, in fact, travel across the edge of Back Cove?

Of course, so far as current conditions go, such a turn of events would require MDOT to pursue the restored rail link via the edge of the I-295 ROW, an idea which seems fairly improbable at the present time.

Oh and the person who did the power point is a volunteer for the MRTC. He in the real estate business and said he represents the owner of Thompson's Point.

That probably would be Tony Donovan, who is in fact the Realtor brokering the Thompson's Point sale and who is also the public face, or at least the only spokesperson I have ever seen, for MRTC. Did you happen to ask how the Thompson's Point project is coming?

Thanks for the report!

Mods, I would support the relocation of this post and the 3 or 4 preceding it to the Portland Commuter Rail thread if you see fit to do so.

The EGE wrote:Those built post-1970? Only a handful on WES in Oregon and Tri-Rail in Florida by a defunct manufacturer. The poorly-thought-out FRA rules make compliant DMUs very difficult to build, even while they're widely used in the rest of the world.

However, there's a lot of old Budd RDCs lying around, and someone in the Midwest has a business refurbishing them IIRC. They run well and last just about forever.

I'm not sure which this service intends to use.

That's what I thought re: post 1970. Thanks, EGE, for the answer.

Successor to Colorado Rail Car: http://www.usrailcar.com/

markhb wrote:Was that part of their proposal, or a map of the historical Portland Junction when the P&R (which would become the Union Branch) did, in fact, travel across the edge of Back Cove?

It wasn't historical but wasn't part of their proposal either. It seemed like it was shown as a possible alternate route or extension? I'm going to email him for it and ask about that. I'll also ask how Thompson's Point is coming along.

wicked wrote:Are DMUs in service anywhere in the U.S. at present?

NJTransit's RiverLINE light rail uses DMU's, I am unaware of any other examples at the moment, though.

DMU's were used in the past, however. The LIRR and Metro-North in New York all had DMU's at one point or another.

RiverLINE and Sprinter use non-compliant DMUs which are time-separated from freight traffic. The Dallas A-train has a one-shot waiver to run non-compliant DMUs on conventional service.

If time-separation is an option, then in theory they could work something out from the Portland-facing end of Danville Junction to the city; the state owns all of it and there's very little traffic on the line with only one current customer. If they wanted to go from the Auburn-Lewiston Airport location that has been discussed w/r/t Amtrak, that would be tougher as they'd have to traverse the yard as well as the stretch from the yard to the airport, which has much more traffic.

Time separation from the Downeaster would not be possible, though.

True, but I'm not sure of the extent to which MRTC is thinking of Downeaster connectivity. I think his thoughts all along have been of a commuter service, concentrating on stations in (guessing) Auburn, Gray, Yarmouth, Falmouth, possibly Presumpscot St. if there's demand, and India St. I'm not sure how the time separation rules would apply to the Yarmouth Junction diamond, though.

Oh, I was misreading the route of the proposed service.

The EGE wrote:However, there's a lot of old Budd RDCs lying around, and someone in the Midwest has a business refurbishing them IIRC. They run well and last just about forever.

Ditto that. There was also a firm in Moncton, NB, just across the border that did RDC rebuilds as well.

BM6569 wrote:I attended a meeting tonight hosted by the MRTC and Sierra Club at the Danville Junction grange hall. They went over the plans and an update of where this project stands. They don't have a full cost estimate yet for how much this will all cost but plan to have another meeting in Jan so I think they will have them by then. What costs they did have were 67 million to restore the track from MP 0 in Portland (India St I believe) to Auburn (MP 29 as I recall). That includes the back cove trestle, which they had received two estimates of 8.8 and 10 million to restore it. I was surprised to see that a whole study had been done on that bridge, back in 2005 I believe. It was very detailed. Apparently the bottom of the pilings had been reinforced with concrete at some point so the bridge will not be falling apart anytime soon. On a bridge note, some engineers have told him that the former GT bridge between Auburn/Lewiston is still in good shape and can hold tracks again.

If true that $8.8 - $10M figure for the Back Cover bridge rebuild is impressive. Definitely get a copy of the study if you can and upload it to some kind of file sharing site if possible. That number if produced by MDOT or someone working for them would be a pretty significant thing as we had all previously understood the bridge rehab. to be $40M all by itself.

BM6569 wrote:He said trains (DMU's) would be running to Auburn in 36 months (as of Jan 1st). Person asked how confident he was and he said very. He thinks there will be. An environmental assessment had been done on the whole line in 2005 but needs to be updated. Also, at this point, they are focused on Portland to Auburn.

Not credible in the slightest. Facilities needed to run this service aren't even permitted yet and Auburn doesn't have a station. This project would require substantial investments as well as permitting and engineering of fully ADA compliant stations in both Portland and Auburn. That simply doesn't happen overnight, which in this context 36 months (3 years) might as well be.

markhb wrote:Mods, I would support the relocation of this post and the 3 or 4 preceding it to the Portland Commuter Rail thread if you see fit to do so.

Good call. I did that, and renamed the topic "Maine Commuter Rail" since it's not strictly about Portland. Sorry it took me a few days; phpBB can be a bit unwieldy when one wants to take certain posts and merge them into a different topic, especially when those posts span multiple pages.