Silly you….you probably think this post will be about the derailing that occurred just outside the Portland Transportation Center this afternoon.
An Amtrak engine, right, pushes the disabled Downeaster back to the Portland Transportation Center after the passenger train derailed Tuesday. Gabe Souza/Staff Photographer
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/04/14/downeaster-derails-in-portland-no-injuries-reported/
But you’d be wrong; we’re not like that. Instead, it’s about something that just occurred to us.
Seems like for well more than a year, the happy-happy talk about constructing an Amtrak Maintenance and Layover Facility (MLF) in the Bouchard Drive neighborhood of Brunswick is that it would miraculously allow the service to expand to five (count ‘em five!!!) round trips per day servicing Brunswick. Civilized transport would finally come to the backwoods of Maine!
Somewhere along the line (get it?), this changed to three round trips a day. We don’t recall any press release or other official notice that the end goal was being changed from three round trips per day instead of five, but there it is.
So we’re just asking what happened while we were out having breakfast. Or out to lunch, as the case may be.
Because when you come right down to it, we already have three round trips a day servicing Brunswick. It’s not our fault NNEPRA doesn’t sell tickets on two of the legs of those round trips. And it’s not our fault that their scheduling doesn’t seem to support bragging rights on the subject. We fail to see how the arguments being advanced for the service and the facility hold water, Frank.
But we’re more than willing to await the explanations of All Aboard Brunswick and the others who want more ways to “get out of town, before it’s too late my love.”
If all they’re looking for is more exciting ways to spend their money, can’t Brunswick (hello, BDA!) come up with more ways for them to spend it right here at home?
Maybe we need a little rail loop that circles the town without leaving it, so rail-fans can enjoy the romance without looking for love in all the wrong places.
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