Pasenger train service to Brunswick, Freeport begins Nov. 1

[lovemaine]

I can't wait! We moved to Maine 3 1/2 years ago and still haven't made it to Boston to sight-see. The train will give us more of an incentive to go. Especially since I absolutely hate driving in cities.

[western mass and love it]

If it is run by Amtrak be prepeared to pay through the nose for any trip south to Boston. The trip from Springfield MA to Boston costs $26 one way and takes almost 4 hours. By car I can be parking at the Prudential center from my home in 80 minutes and for less than $52 round trip and way under 8 hours total travel time.

[munna21977]

I just checked Amtrak-tomorrow amtrak ticket for Lake Shore Express costs 20 dollars and trip duration is 3 hours 17 minutes. My car will cost me 20 dollars in fuel also(even more considering there are some tolls on the way)-but I will not have to drive if I sit on Amtrak. I can sip a coffee or read a book or even sleep instead of driving.

Originally Posted by western mass and love it

If it is run by Amtrak be prepeared to pay through the nose for any trip south to Boston. The trip from Springfield MA to Boston costs $26 one way and takes almost 4 hours. By car I can be parking at the Prudential center from my home in 80 minutes and for less than $52 round trip and way under 8 hours total travel time.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by western mass and love it

If it is run by Amtrak be prepeared to pay through the nose for any trip south to Boston. The trip from Springfield MA to Boston costs $26 one way and takes almost 4 hours. By car I can be parking at the Prudential center from my home in 80 minutes and for less than $52 round trip and way under 8 hours total travel time.

Service already exists from Portland to Boston and it's operated by Amtrak (the "Downeaster"). The Brunswick service is merely an extension of the existing route. Like the Springfield- Boston run, it's not super cheap and it's painfully slow (pushing 3+ hours when the same drive is 2). It's not even close to being something anyone would consider for their regular work commute. However, it's fine for those who want to take a day drip into the city and don't feel like driving (see some of the previous posts) or being crammed into a bus.

I took the Downeaster to Boston twice when I was going to college in Portland. The positives? It was comfortable. The negatives? It wasn't really cheap, and there were delays up and down the entire route both times (Amtrak takes 3rd priority on single track to MBTA commuter trains and freight rail so you do a lot of waiting). But if you want to see Boston, don't want to drive, and want to enjoy the novelty of a train ride, it's perfectly fine.

I don't think there will be much of a boost economically in Freeport or Brunswick. I remember hearing people talk about how all sorts of shoppers are going to take the train from Boston to Freeport to go shopping. Really? People are going to sit on a train for 6-7 hours round trip to go shopping at the outlets there? The only really unique outlet in Freeport is the L.L. Bean flagship. Most of the product can be ordered online. And if anyone's going to do serious shopping at L.L. Bean they'll drive so they can put items in the trunk instead of schlepping them onto a train (which is part of the reason L.L. Bean is mostly just a stop in a bigger vacation for most tourists). Aside from L.L. Bean (and there are smaller L.L. Bean stores close to Boston), most of the other outlets can be found MUCH closer to Boston (Wrentham, Merrimack, etc). You can even reach 5th Avenue and New York City faster by train than you'll be able to reach Freeport.

The other big downside is that Southern Maine is very spread out. Freeport's station is nicely located, but Brunswick's is a little bit of a walk from the town center. The biggest complaint about Portland's station is that it drops you off too far from downtown. It's not like New York City (or even Boston) where you get let out right in the middle of the city center. And also unlike Boston or New York, there's very little in Brunswick or Freeport that can't be seen in a single afternoon. 6-7 hours on a train is a long ride for an afternoon in Brunswick.

Still, it's something to build on and provides Mainers an easy, comfortable way to get to/from Boston. It's definitely more comfortable than a bus, and it provides a great alternative to driving. While it may not be "cheap," you have to consider that most tourists will park in a garage that will charge $20+ per day and pay tolls which easily equal $8 or so round trip; so there's at least a little offset there. I'm glad they're extending service because it provides a building block for potentially faster service in the future. For now, it's akin to the Vermonter service. A nice thing to have, but not a regular commuting option for the vast majority of the passengers.

Originally Posted by munna21977

I just checked Amtrak-tomorrow amtrak ticket for Lake Shore Express costs 20 dollars and trip duration is 3 hours 17 minutes. My car will cost me 20 dollars in fuel also(even more considering there are some tolls on the way)-but I will not have to drive if I sit on Amtrak. I can sip a coffee or read a book or even sleep instead of driving.

Well, it'll cost you gas, tolls and parking. That would be in the ballpark of $40 when all is said and done. The same as a round trip train ride. So for a single person, it's fine (assuming the extra 2 plus hours round trip on the train isn't a problem). If you want to go with a friend, the train is $80 rt whereas the car is still $40 (and faster). A family of 4 is $160 on the train and the car is still $40. The train works fine for the occasional jaunt (some families will pay extra just for the experience), but it's not exactly an efficient (in terms of time/price) means of regular commuting.

[western mass and love it]

Total miles from Spfld to Boston is 78(although via train is longer as the train winds through the hills and valleys).Total miles from Portland to boston is 99 yet the train ride is shorter by more than an hour(well without the delays and such). So I can see where more people from Portland or southern Maine in general would be more apt to take the train into Boston than people in Western Mass.

Also the train runs more frequently from Portland to Boston than it does from Springfield to Boston. But ironicly i can hop a train to New Haven almost on the hour from Springfield. I wish I had more options to get into Boston than car or bus,after a while the drive just gets to be a drag.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by western mass and love it

Total miles from Spfld to Boston is 78(although via train is longer as the train winds through the hills and valleys).Total miles from Portland to boston is 99 yet the train ride is shorter by more than an hour(well without the delays and such). So I can see where more people from Portland or southern Maine in general would be more apt to take the train into Boston than people in Western Mass.

Also the train runs more frequently from Portland to Boston than it does from Springfield to Boston. But ironicly i can hop a train to New Haven almost on the hour from Springfield. I wish I had more options to get into Boston than car or bus,after a while the drive just gets to be a drag.

Yeah, Springfield-Boston rail is a big problem (probably for another forum). When I was checking the times on Amtrak, it looks like the Springfield-Boston train is about 40 minutes longer than the Portland-Boston train in terms of scheduled time. Still inexcusable, but not as bad as over an hour. Still, 3+ hours scheduled time on the train vs. 80 minutes driving is absurd.

Two other factors I think play a little bit of a role. One is that the Springfield area is closer to Boston and far more urbanized than Southern Maine which means that the comfort level of driving in Boston (or urban areas in general) is higher among those in Springfield than in Southern Maine. Also, rail travel isn't as much of a novelty in the Springfield area (with regular service to New Haven, Boston and Beyond) as it is in Southern Maine which makes the train more ideal for visitors to Boston from Maine than from Springfield.

[beltrams]

I'd throw out a caution about computing costs when driving a car...

The gas and tolls is only part of the total cost, and in my experience, a pretty small one at that.

When I changed my life away from what was typically a 20 mile commute each way, not only did my gasoline and toll bills go way down, but I wasn't finding myself at the car service shop facing another $100, 200, 300 (or more!) bill for new brakes, a bunch of engine filters, and maybe a whole bunch of other things that the car needed nearly as much as when I drove 18,000 to 23,000 miles a year. Then too, my car stayed cleaner, inside and out and I wasn't buying a new set of tires every 3 years or so.

When ever I can take a bus, or a train, or even a cheap rental car (sometimes Enterprise has insanely cheap, unlimited mileage deals on weekends), that means I get to add so many more weeks in between car service/repair trips, more repair/maintenance bills, and eventually, a trip to the car showroom to replace the car. (A service trip can easily swallow up half the day or more and usually is a pain to juggle with work.)

After several years of less driving, the freedom from constantly having to feed the car something (besides gas, but that too), has been quite noticeable. I wouldn't give the car up completely, but cut back on its use? You bet. That's how trains and buses help. Several trips of 150, 200, 300, or more miles averted, particularly in the winter, when all that salt and sand just *eats* the car up, buys lots of extra life for the car and after a while, the savings add up. I let somebody else's vehicle get all crudded up on a sandy, salty, trip up/down Maine's I-95 rather than mine, if I at all get the chance. A bus or train may take an hour or so longer, but that's time not spent in York's service bays.

[lrfox]

^I know the feeling. I ditched my car when I moved to Boston and lived without it for a few years. I loved it. It was the first time since I got my license that I wasn't paying for registration, excise tax, gas, inspections, maintenance, incidental repairs, tolls, etc. AAA estimates that average annual cost of car ownership is just under $9,000 or $0.60/mile driven (source). I think that number is close to accurate (I drove a mid-size sedan about 15,000 mi per year).

Living without the car freed up a LOT of money and I really wasn't stuck. I walked or took public transit just about everywhere. When I needed to drive, I either went with a friend or rented (hotwire.com often has great rental deals). It worked beautifully.

I know that it's pretty difficult to live in Maine without a car unless you are willing to make serious sacrifices to your mobility (I wouldn't have considered doing it in Portland when I lived there). Still, taking steps to cut back on your usage can save you a ton of money. I'm back to requiring a car ( I can no longer take transit to work), but I still rent for road trips and take trains or buses any chance I get. I put less than 10k miles on my car this year and I'm pretty happy with that.

[in_newengland]

I wanted to go when it first started. Then we got struck by storms and they continued all winter long but this week we finally did it. Boarded the train at a pretty station in Exeter NH and glided along the tracks to Freeport. So relaxing. We bought sandwiches and drinks and sat in the dining car and the rest of the time was spent looking out the window at the scenery. I love trains.

For us, as we are retired, it was a getaway. We stayed overnight in Freeport, shopped the next day and boarded the train back at around 7pm. At the Freeport station we were welcomed and greeted and taken by cab to our hotel for a small fee. None of the disorientation that I felt the time I went to Portland, got off the train and --huh?

We're not rich so we didn't provide any serious money to the great state of Maine but there are plenty of people with money who will take this trip and spend big. We did spend for a hotel (during the week when they didn't have much business), did spend at a natural food store, and the cab driver got some $$$$, (very nice cab business, very helpful), we did spend a little bit in some of the outlets and we spent money to eat in Freeport. This took place in the off season when not that many people would be going north but with the ease of the train ride and the pleasant hotel with heated pool it's a nice getaway and it extends the tourist season.

I love trains anyway. I can remember traveling by train before they all started falling apart and it got to be more scary than fun. We'll probably do it again in the fall as it was only about two hours and was a perfect getaway with no worries about the car. This can only be a boon to the economy once more people are aware of it and I think it will definitely catch on.