It appears to me that this is another brilliant attempt to get their right of ways upgraded at no charge to them, which makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint.
Guilford was quoted in a newspaper article quite a while back saying that they would be open to passenger service on their portion of the former Eastern Route.
Going to Wilton is a good idea, last time I was out in Milford it was clear that it was a growing town.
From a business standpoint, getting the NH Division, the Hillsborough Branch, and the Eastern or Hampton Industrial upgraded with someone elses money makes a lot of sense for them.
Unfortunately, because of Guilford's business practices in the past, and the fact that they held up the DownEaster for ten years, one should think twice before jumping into bed with them.
Passenger service to Nashua would be over MBTA trackage to the state line then over G trackage north.
Since NH is going to drag this out as long as they can because they simply don't want to spend the money, it would seem to me that there would be merit to taking half the right of way by eminent domain. I believe that the NH Division was double tracked up to Manchester, if I am wrong, please correct me. If that is the case, it would be nice to have G out of the picture and have the state of NH own the right of way.
Unfortunately, NH does not like rail. It wouldn't surprise me if this never happened.
The folks in Nashua would probably do better bribing some officials in Tyngsboro to have a commuter rail station put in just below the NH border so NH people wouldn't have to drive down to Lowell.