Long/Medium Distance Maine Amtrak Service

Not to burst any bubbles or anything, but the performance of the Brunswick extension should immediately nip in the bud any dreams about further expansion. FY16, ridership on the extension averaged only a busload in each direction daily and, according to NNEPRA's suspect calculations, two-thirds of the passenger load were visitors. Excepting Rockland (which would arguably have demand three months/year), the expansion destination cities are NOT tourist destinations. Load factors would be pitiful, tourists or not.

By the way, what would "improved" bus service entail? Buses already serve the cities in question, such as Augusta (six departures daily, 1:10 to Portland; 3:10 to Boston - better than the DE does BRU-BON!).

>nobody in their right mind

>Haverhill-Boston commuters

These are not necessarily contradictory terms, yanno.

Cowford wrote:By the way, what would "improved" bus service entail? Buses already serve the cities in question, such as Augusta (six departures daily, 1:10 to Portland; 3:10 to Boston - better than the DE does BRU-BON!).

In the case of Lewiston/Auburn a measly 2 Greyhound round trips a day, which in typical Greyhound fashion, operate to a different terminal in Portland to all other ground transportation. Obviously room for improvement here.

Jon

Here's a start:

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/03/09/m ... brunswick/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"The three-year pilot Breez service... was launched last year. It runs 10 round-trips five days a week from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. between Portland and Freeport, and a shorter, five round-trip schedule on Saturdays. One-way fares on the Breez are $3, and the shuttles are outfitted with USB ports, wireless internet, overhead storage and bike racks... Since it launched in June, there have been an estimated 15,000 boardings..."

Nine months into it and already exceeding Downeaster ridership at Freeport.

A "motor coach" with feeble leg room, no food service and a slave to highway Summer congestion. How much are we paying to fund this "business?"

Expecting food service on a 30-45 min bus ride? If you can't go that long without the need for a subsidized Whoopie Pie, there's always the Downeaster. (Though if you take the bus, you could buy two Whoopie Pies with the money you save!)

The article didn't elaborate on Federal funding, but local subsidy is comparatively nominal.

Cowford wrote:Expecting food service on a 30-45 min bus ride? If you can't go that long without the need for a subsidized Whoopie Pie, there's always the Downeaster. (Though if you take the bus, you could buy two Whoopie Pies with the money you save!)

The article didn't elaborate on Federal funding, but local subsidy is comparatively nominal.

Fair enough. Perhaps a protean bar?
According to todays Main Biz, Brunswick is paying 33,000 for the service in 2017-2018, 43,000 in 2018-2019. Bowdoin College 10,000 a year in addition to public transit subsidies.
http://www.mainbiz.biz/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Whatever happened to the plans to run a Montreal-Portland train? IIRC it was about 10 years or so ago that the planners said that it would be just a few more years to implement. When (?) the VERMONTER gets into Montreal whenever the new customs facility is built maybe this project could be looked at again.

There aren't any solid proposals out there on Montreal right now. Certainly nothing credible.

The shorter-term "Hotel Train" proposal for a luxury Portland-Montreal overnight went dead when the sponsors couldn't obtain liability-free insurance for operating over St. Lawrence & Atlantic's mainline. That one had no better than rosiest, tippy-top 10% shot of ever happening because of the hurdles, but at least the sponsors were a legit tourist booking agency in Canada who'd done business with other excursion operators for train tours. And the schedule times they quoted fit the overnighter-w/amenities business model and the host RRs' track speeds. They weren't a total scam operated from some dude's mailbox like that Golden Eagle outfit that surfaces every couple years selling for-profit passenger snake oil up there. The only thing that didn't smell right from the start about this one was the aggressiveness of their start-of-service timetable: something like 1 year from squaring all agreements with the host RR's and importing their passenger equipment operator. That was never ever realistic. They may have been a credible outfit, but the over-promising to absurdity wasn't doing them any favors with relationship-building.

Insurance was one of just several steep hurdles the hotel train operators had to clear, but it ended up being the killer that upended any chance of any/all of the other hurdles being cleared. Not being able to get SLR's (Gennesee & Wyoming-owned) permission for a rate break was lethal, because if they couldn't get a Class III carrier with a flexible freight schedule that could accommodate a weekender overnight to budge on insurance...then they had zero shot of getting the other Class I/II/III carriers on the route (PAR + Amtrak, Portland-Royal Jct.-Danville Jct. and either CN + VIA, Drummondville-Montreal OR CP + CMQR + Amtrak, Sherbrooke-St. Jean-Montreal) to agree to the same. And every next hurdle in the paperwork was tougher than the first, so it truly was the end when SLR refused.

Unfortunately insurance is one of those near-immovable barriers keeping private for-profit excursion operations from getting any sort of national traction. It's hard enough to get trackage rights on one railroad for operating in one local region. Start pushing paper across multiple division posts and 99% of the time the liability rates just don't ever cooperate for running a viable operation. So far nobody's been able to break through with that and fashion any sort of business model for that class of service.

Thanks for that, F-Line; I remember that proposal but hadn't heard of any concrete reasons it vanished.

NRGeep wrote:Fair enough. Perhaps a protean bar?

Mr. Geep, while quite likely compliments of Mr. Google, who seems to know what word you and I want better than we know ourselves, but---

Protean:

: displaying great diversity or variety : versatile

Proteins are essential nutrients for the human body.[1] They are one of the building blocks of body tissue, and can also serve as a fuel source.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:

NRGeep wrote:Fair enough. Perhaps a protean bar?

Mr. Geep, while quite likely compliments of Mr. Google, who seems to know what word you and I want better than we know ourselves, but---

Protean:

: displaying great diversity or variety : versatile

Proteins are essential nutrients for the human body.[1] They are one of the building blocks of body tissue, and can also serve as a fuel source.

Mea culpa sir! Blind faith in spell check failed me. That said, perhaps Amcafe's could feature a nu protean bar with diverse ingredients "up to and including" freshly ground track kill deer etc mixed with seasonal berries and other regional goodies found along Amtraks ROW's.
And briefly OT, a "Protean Bar" watering hole could be a fun lab for nu 21st century drinks...21st Century Unlimited anyone?

There have been indications that the prospective host railroads were annoyed to find out about this proposal from the media. SLR was bad. Not talking to Pan Am ahead of time was probably even worse.

Just curious, what does "liability-free insurance" mean in that context? I can't imagine it would mean that all liability for accidents would pass through to the host railroad.