In the meantime, Concord Coach and the Maine Turnpike Authority have announced plans to add bus service between Lewiston/Auburn, Wells and Boston. In the past CC has been reluctant to add service if the state is going to turn around and subsidize train service to compete with them, but they have been assured that they don't expect train service to L/A anytime soon. The bus company would be building new stations near exit 75 of the turnpike and at Great Falls plaza, plus using the current Wells Downeaster station which is owned by the Turnpike Authority. The plan is 5 trips a day starting in 2017.
This is a link to a Press Herald article about this service:
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/10/20/g ... -portland/
Both bus stations – one at Great Falls Plaza, the other at Exit 75 of the Maine Turnpike – are scheduled for construction next year, with bus service anticipated to start in early 2017, according to the governor’s office. The bus stations will serve CityLink, the fixed-route service between Lewiston and Auburn, but also will allow for the creation of a new Lewiston-to-Portland route through Concord Coach Lines. That route will begin at Bates College in Lewiston and will stop at both new stations before continuing on to Portland.
This particular article did not talk about service to Wells, but an earlier article did.
It makes me wonder, if CC is going ahead with this and spending their own money, they have to be fairly confident that the state isn't going to come in and undercut them by adding train service. So that implies we won't see the much talked about Amtrak expansion to L/A anytime soon. But maybe this is just as well, let the bus service get going and build ridership, then maybe at a later time there might be more of a market for train service, and the 2 can co-exist, as they do in the Portland - Boston market.
Jon
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the determination that some things are more important than fear.