Official Maine Eastern Railroad Thread (ME) - 2010

The MeDOT is still in the process of conducting a feasibility strategy for the transportation alternatives around the BNAS reuse plan. They have been holding public comment meetings in the Brunswick area for the past few months. The last session is coming up on August 12th http://www.nasb-transportation-study.co ... 081210.pdf.
Most of the proposals involve Route One and Bath Rd, but under the section titled "Strategy 3" they have outlined three options for extending a rail spur into the base-

Strategy 3: Rail Access to BNAS
Mr.Kennedy descibed Strategy 3 , which explores the feasibility of railroad access to the Brunswick Naval Air Base from the existing Rockland Branch Rail Line. There are two options for extending this rail spur on to the NASB . The first option is the western connection , which would cross Bath Road just east of Jordan Avenue and the second option is the eastern connection , which would cross Bath Road just west of the Merry Meeting Plaza. Each alternative could cross Bath Road as a grade separated option, where the rail line would pass under Bath Road, or at grade, which would have the rail line crossing Bath Road with a signalized rail crossing. For more detail on both these options, visit the study websiteat http://www.nasb-transportation-study.com.

Also, in the minutes to the March informational meeting the consulting firm VHB made the following announcement-

Regional Rail Intermodal & Maintenance Facility
Feasibility Study

• Stakeholder Coordination
• Economic Freight Market Analysis
• Evaluation of Facility Needs
• Site Analysis
• Funding Options Evaluation
• Final Report


Mr. David Wilcock of VHB said that there is interest in evaluating an intermodal facility in Brunswick, where cargo comes in by rail and out by truck and vice versa. The study will look at freight movements in the area to evaluate the feasibility of locating this type of facility in Brunswick. This could be great opportunity for the area. The process will begin fairly soon by talking to potential users (shippers), looking at the potential economics, generating a cost-benefit analysis to find out if such an arrangement would be beneficial to both shippers and rail operators, look at what kind of truck and rail access would be needed. He will be talking with stakeholders and looking at locations and possible funding sources, both public and private.

Is this news to anybody else?

I was upthere about a week ago and I was looking for the old spur into the base but could not find it. I suspect it was ripped out years ago so they would need to rebuild it entirely.

They have a private jet manufacturer who has signed on to lease space in one of the hangers. I don't know if they would ship in raw materials in by rail though.

The BNAS manufacturer is Kestrel Aircraft, who will potentially bring 300 jobs to the area. They had their final public comment session last Thursday I believe and for the life of me I can't find anything anywhere that says what they decided!
The MeDot distributed leaflets all over town describing the options concerning transportation initiatives around the development of the former BNAS now to be called " Brunswick Landing". Most of the items up for debate concern traffic patterns (roundabouts, off ramps etc...) but there are two options for the rail spur that should be relatively easy to implement in comparison to the other traffic issues.
They still wont be making the decision as to whether or not the spur will cross Bath Rd at grade or separate. My own feeling is that, unless it fits in with one of the other plans, the easiest thing to do would be a simple grade crossing. I can't imagine the rail spur traffic would be so significant as to cause serious disruptions to Old Bath Rd. If people are in a hurray they can just take RT 1 anyway.
If anybody hears anything about the meeting on August 12th please let me know!

kilroy wrote:I was upthere about a week ago and I was looking for the old spur into the base but could not find it. I suspect it was ripped out years ago so they would need to rebuild it entirely.

It was years ago, I have no idea when but it was a long time ago.

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=r9hxng ... vl=1&sty=o

Spur entered from the lower right corner of this map. If you drag the map up into BNAS, you can make out the curvature of the rail ROW.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 2,,0,15.61

Here is the street level view, you wouldn't know a spur used to run here.

http://docs.unh.edu/ME/bath57sw.jpg

Has any of the track work approved in the last transportation bond, in particular tie replacement, been competed on this summer?

Does anyone know what the next step is once this is complete?

The state has done thousands of ties on this line since 1994. Just wondering if there are still many that need to be replaced of if the tie replacement is now largely complete and will only need year to year maintenance.

The spur into BNAS was active, at least until circa 1975. Before we married in mid 1973, and she moved to Yarmouth with me, she lived in the mobile home park across from the base,right next to the tracks. Freight would come down from Rockland, as early as 4AM, sounding its horn for the grade crossings.

About once a week, the would have a reefer(meat) on the head pin for the base. The car had been left at Hardings by the freight TO Rockland, as the switch points on the base spur faced west. so unless it was "pushed" from Brunswick yard, it couldn't have been brought into base.

There was quite a complex of tracks on the base, as late as this time span.

The base was originally built during W.W. 2 , mainly to train British Empire pilots on the Vought Corsair, which, along with its Pratt & Whitney engine, was built in Connecticut. I suspect Avgas, fuel oil, coal etc. was brought into the base on the spur, along with the steel used in the base construction. The base was put on caretaker status soon after the war ended.

Circa 1950, it was re-opened and greatly expanded, becoming an anti-submarine base. A pipeline was built to a fuel depot in S. Harpswell, that could offload large tankers to ensure a steady supply of aviation spirits. I can recall as a "kid", in the 1950's seeing numerous Navy vehicles going through Portland on flatcars to the base.

There was even "talk" in the 1990's, when the pipeline/fuel depot/port was closed down due to enviromental pressure, to reactivate the spur from the "mainline" to bring in the JP-4 fuel by rail from the tank farm at Searsport, instead of 100's of additional tanker trucks on the roads. Due, mostly to "logistics" between the B&A and Guilford, rail transport never happened.

The spur did NOT have any gates or lights as it crossed busy "Old Bath Road"(old Rt. 1), flagging being done by the MEC crews.

Hope this helps a bit.

Bud

MeDOT posted PDFs with the plans for the two rail-spur alternatives. Both alternatives include both an "at-grade" and a "grade separate" crossing option.
The "Western Connection" http://www.nasb-transportation-study.co ... ection.pdf diverges from the Rockland Branch east of Jordan Ave.

The "Eastern Connection" http://www.nasb-transportation-study.co ... ection.pdf diverges before the western edge of the Shaw's parking lot.

Neither plan seems to follow the old spur ROW.

Interesting read, Bud. Thanks for that info.

wolfmom69 wrote: The spur did NOT have any gates or lights as it crossed busy "Old Bath Road"(old Rt. 1), flagging being done by the MEC crews.

Actually, that's Bath Rd. from Maine St., Brunswick to the West Bath town line, where it becomes State Rd.
Old Bath Rd. is east of Cook's Corner, and the Rockland Branch crosses it (lights, no gates) just in from the intersection with Bath Rd.
I think the sub-grade crossing would be much more expensive, but would probably save a lot of heartburn for motorists on that road. (Also known as Rt. 24, until 24 turns south at Cook's Corner, toward Harpswell.)

There was talk awhile back by somebody at the Maine Eastern about refurbishing rail cars in a facility on "Brunswick Landing" (the name for the base after it's turned over to the redevelopment authority), but I haven't heard anything about that lately.

Yeah the last I heard about any sort of rail industry activity at the "Brunswick Landing" was talk of an intermodal facility feasibility study by one of the MeDOT consulting agencies. It certainly doesn't look like anything that's ever going to happen though...
Assuming there isn't any intermodal facility on the horizon then I don't see why a grade crossing would be a huge headache. Especially if the traffic would be limited to switchers delivering cars to the branch.

Interesting point about Old Bath Rd. It seems like the local vernacular, especially when it comes to some of them younger folks ("young" means under 70 in Maine) confuse's "Bath Rd" for "Old Bath Rd" because they assume The RT 1 Coastal Connector serves as the "New Bath Rd."

Thanks for the maps guys. While I have been going up there since I was a babe in the late 50's, I didn't remember the spur into the base going through the strip mall parking lot. I always thought it crossed Bath Rd between the base enterance and the current Shaw's driveway.

It would be nice to see more freight action up there. To make Rail car repair cost effective for the ME, I would think they would need to do the work in one of the old hangers as the repair season for an outdoor facility would "limited."

New freight potential in Rockland
MERR/M&E crews recently installed a new siding off the Rockland Running Track, east of New County Road. Apparently there was a track there before, serving a building still marked "Port Clyde Foods, Inc."
The switch is between New County Rd. and Broadway, near the power switch for the Rockland Station Track and the Wharf ("Atlantic") Branch. The siding runs westward from the switch to a bumper ("bunter") at the edge of New County Road. (Don't know if the former track crossed the road.)
Word is that the old concrete loading dock at the building served by the new siding will be repaired and expanded to accommodate two cars. The user might be O'Hara Corp., which was the recipient of the lading in the occasional boxcars that went to Rockland in Maine Coast Railroad and later days. (Not sure if they're still getting bagged salt by rail, but the bagged blasting grit traffic "went away" a few years ago.) Not much activity noticed in or around the building, but I haven't been to Rockland for awhile.

No idea who the new freight customer might be.

Would like to hear from any individuals working the railroad or familiar with operations how the excursion season went. Are there any preparations underway for the arrival of the Downeaster in Brunswick?

Has there been any new track work on the line this year?

gokeefe wrote:Has there been any new track work on the line this year?

Many ties were replaced by Maine Track Maintenance. A production tamper and ballast regulator from RailWorks were on the line in May. MERR and MDOT recently spread some more ballast in various locations, and I think the tamper and regulator will be working on that, if they haven't already. Three highway/rail grade crossings were upgraded from passive warnings (crossbucks) to lights and gates.
That's all I can remember, but I'm sure there was more.

Was there a specific area of focus for the track work or was it 'spot' replacement of ties along the entire line?

Seemed to be just "spot" replacement: anything with a fluorescent orange "spot" spray-painted on one end got yanked. Some of them were pretty raggedy.

I'm not sure how much tie work went into the east end, but it seemed like a lot was done from Newcastle westward.

Even with machinery like inserter/removers working on it, I'll bet a few places were a challenge, like the rock cut on the Edgecomb side of the Sheepscot Draw.