Waiting on the train

Will it really be here on May 1? What do you think?

By Noah Bruce

On a recent Wednesday evening, at the Pride’s Corner Unitarian Church in Westbrook, just off Rt. 302, a group of about 30 gray-haired men are sitting enraptured by a home movie about trains. The group is the 470 Club, named for the last steam locomotive to pull a passenger train in Maine, and its president, Dick Lane, sits in the back of the room adding occasional narration to his film.

“This was a busy junction,” he says as the group watches a northbound freight train chug its way up the tracks. “These trains were spaced out only five minutes or so.”

When the movie shows a truck hauling automobiles frames on the highway, Lane quips, “Think of all the traffic they’re going to cause.” A few others chuckle along with him.

Train humor, like watching over two hours of train footage in one sitting, we have to assume is an acquired taste. And while many of us might be excited about the possibility of train service between Portland and Boston, as one might imagine, the 470 men are beside themselves with anticipation.

“It will be the greatest thing since sliced bread,” says Len Bachelder, a 470 member. “My wife and I will be on the first train.“

Bachelder and the others have been following the trains on-again-off-again approach to Maine more closely than most of us. They know the players involved in negotiating the new passenger rail service. And if you were to ask them about Guilford Rail Systems, the company that owns most of the railroad track between Boston and Maine, you don’t get the warmest feelings.

“You wouldn’t be wrong to say they have been heel dragging,” says one member.

“But they are businessmen,” says another train enthusiast sticking up for Guilford’s bargaining style. “It’s their job to make the best deal they can.”

Whether or not you blame Guilford for the long wait, Maine has been unable to revive passenger rail service, dead in the state since 1965.

But that’s about to change — hopefully. For 13 years a citizen-led effort has tried to bring the passenger rail back to the state, and it seems they are about to reach their first goal — restore service between Boston and Portland. Officials at the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority (NNEPRA) say Amtrak’s inaugural run between Boston’s North Station and a station on Sewall Street at Thompson’s Point will be May 1.

Thing is, train officials have set deadlines before, first in 1993, then in 1995, 1998, 1999, and finally 2000, and still there is no train. While Portland is undeniably closer to getting the service than it was in previous years, there are still some final details to be worked out in negotiations with Guildford, details that could make May 1 just another day without a train.

So far, excepting Boston and Haverhill, none of the cities where the train will stop — Exeter, Durham, Dover, Wells, Biddeford-Saco, Old Orchard Beach, and Portland — have built platforms. This is because they are not legally allowed to build on the train track until a lease agreement is hammered out between them and Guilford. Currently, NNEPRA, the interstate agency bargaining on behalf of the cities, and Guilford are working on an agreement.

According to Nate Moulton, deputy director of NNEPRA, it takes a month or two to build a platform, “but that really depends on the location.” This means if negotiations are prolonged into March they could delay platform construction long enough to blow the May 1 deadline — according to regulations you need platforms to run a passenger train.

Negotiators on the platform deal are optimistic that an agreement will be reached in time. NNEPRA’s executive director, Mike Murray, projects negotiations to be completed by early February, and Guilford spokesperson Cynthia Scarano says the company is hoping talks will be finished before January 31.

But that’s not to say negotiations are progressing without a hitch. Sources at NNEPRA and Guilford say there is a sticking point in the talks over liability. Because Guilford owns the track and each city will own its own platform, liability is shared. The question is who is responsible for what?

Scarano says, “There are a host of liability issues including personal injury, construction, snow removal, and the moving of fiber-optic cable close to the sites.”

“They want to reduce their liability is some areas, and we are in the same boat,” says Moulton. “We are trying to find common ground.”

As soon as an agreement is worked out, cities can begin to build platforms. Jeff Monroe, head of the Portland Department of Transportation, says that Portland is ready to build its platform and a station, it’s just waiting for money from NNEPRA, money that will not be granted until the negotiations with Guilford are finalized.

Despite what both NNEPRA and Guilford say to the contrary, its quite possible that these discussions could take awhile, especially when you consider Guilford’s track record in negotiations, especially over liability issues.

 

Most of the track between Boston and Portland was built in the 1840s by three small railroad companies. One of these companies, the Boston and Maine Railroad, took control of all the track in the 1880s. They offered freight and passenger service between the cities until the latter became unprofitable as more and more Americans took to the highways. The last passenger train from Boston to Portland ran in 1965; passenger service ended entirely that same year.

Freight trains, though, have never stopped rolling across Maine. In 1981, Tim Mellon, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, started Guilford when he bought the Maine Central Railroad that runs from Portland to Bangor, naming his new company after his hometown in Connecticut. In 1983 the company added the track between Boston and Portland when it purchased the Boston and Maine Railroad. Later it bought the Dover and Hudson Railroad in Massachusetts but ended up selling the track acquired in this deal in the early ’90s.

Since early in the company’s history, Guilford has had a maverick reputation. In the ’80s it set an industry precedent when it cut down the size of the crews running its trains and managed to break ensuing worker strikes. Several times during its negotiations with Amtrak over the past decade, Guilford made a public gesture of impatience by offering to run passenger service between Boston and Portland itself and leave Amtrak out of the loop. At another point the company made a brash offer, considered ridiculous by some observers, to buy Amtrak’s rights to the Northeast Corridor, the railroad track between Washington, DC, and Boston that comprises Amtrak’s most profitable and heavily traveled route.

Amtrak and Guilford’s strained discussions began in 1992, although the parties did not begin actual contractual negotiations until January 1996. Progress was so abysmal that the Surface Transportation Board, a federal governing body, was called in to arbitrate the matter in the fall of that year. The main point of contention was liability concerns — issues that lie at the heart of current talks between NNEPRA and Guilford.

Amtrak, which had made similar arrangements with other railroad companies around the country, expected to share liability with Guilford in the event of an Amtrak wreck, but Guilford wanted to assume none of the responsibility. If Guilford had its way, Amtrak would have had to spend 10 times what it expected to pay on insurance premiums. Further, Guilford wanted Amtrak to pay higher than anticipated maintenance rates for use of its tracks.

The two also quarreled over the type of track necessary to run trains at the speed Amtrak and NNEPRA wanted — 79 mph. They felt the higher speed was necessary to seduce potential passengers away from the highway. Guilford said only more expensive, 132-pound rail could accommodate such speeds, otherwise trains should be limited to 59 mph. Amtrak argued that trains could go 79 mph on 115-pound rail.

In 1998 the Surface Transportation Board decided on the matter of liability and payment — the parties would share liability, though not as much as Amtrak had hoped for, and Amtrak would pay maintenance fees similar to what it paid other railroad companies. The board ruled on the speed issue in 1999 saying the train could go 79 mph on a track upgrade using 115-pound rail.

To this day, the speed issue is still not settled. Despite the board’s ruling, Guilford claims that the upgrade does not meet specifications to run a train safely at 79 mph.

“As far as we are concerned, the work that was done and the money that went into [the project] were enough to run at 59 mph,” says Guilford’s Scarano.

“It’s a difference in interpretation,” counters Moulton.

Though the issue is important and could affect how many people choose to ride the train, Moulton claims it will not push back the May 1 deadline. “We could start off running at 59 mph and upgrade to a higher speed later on,” he says.

 

Some observers feel that throughout negotiations Guilford has been obstinate and is largely responsible for making the startup project the longest in Amtrak’s history.

“The first reason it has taken so long is Guilford has been throwing up roadblocks,” says Mark Sinclair of the Conservation Law Foundation, a group that advocates passenger rail service. “They have been trying to extract as much financial return as possible when they’re dealing with Amtrak, and they’ve been fairly onerous with requirements for liability protection for use of their line. My understanding is they have not worked cooperatively with Amtrak or with state officials.”

Scarano characterizes the company’s attitude differently.

“Unlike Amtrak, we are a private company and we need to protect ourselves from liability in case of an accident . . . In terms of the speed issue, we have been very zealous in making sure safety is a priority. If that makes us obstinate then . . . ”

Professor Charles Colgan, a professor of public policy and management at the University of Southern Maine who has studied the issue, believes, “Guilford has never been enthusiastic about passenger service.”

Perhaps one reason Guilford has been less amenable to Amtrak than other railroad companies have been is that most of those companies were used to passenger service on their tracks prior to Amtrak’s inception in 1971. For instance, freight and passenger trains have shared track in the Northeast Corridor, the railroad between Washington, DC, and Boston, for years. By contrast, Maine has not had passenger service in over 45 years.

In addition, though Guilford may have been inflexible, they probably feel they have had good reason. Under a series of rulings from the Federal Transportation Committee, Amtrak — which, like the Post Office, is an independently run federal operation — is able to force a private track owner to open its railroad to Amtrak trains. Though Amtrak must work out an agreement with the track owner and must pay for the service, the property owner does not have the option to say no.

According to Colgan, “Guildford, whose exclusive business is freight, is worried that putting passenger trains on the tracks will reduce the flexibility they have for moving freight.” Currently, Guilford can send a freight train out whenever it wants. But when passenger service is added, the company will have to schedule around Amtrak trains. The fact that Amtrak trains run faster than Guilford’s freight trains compounds the problem by increasing the complexity of scheduling demands.

The silver lining for Guilford is a $60 million, publicly funded track upgrade, necessary to run a passenger train. The upgrade began in the summer of 1999 and was nearing completion in 2000 but had to be halted right before Christmas — track and ballast can’t be laid on frozen ground. Track work will begin again in March, and according to Guilford should not contribute to a delayed May 1 deadline. The refurbished track will be more modern in technology and will allow the company to run its trains faster, but this perk has not evinced a more welcoming attitude from Guilford according to professor Colgan.

Not everyone is quick to point the finger at Guilford for delaying the project, though. Wayne Davis, chairman of Trainriders Northeast — the citizens’ group that has fought for 13 years to bring the train to Portland — portrays Guilford executives as “hard-nosed businessmen” who are interested in turning a profit, but denies that they have taken steps to stop Amtrak. Davis mentions a host of other impediments that have held up progress including a 14- or 15-month halt while rail unions decided on terms of labor agreements; a six-month break when “all the paperwork [at Amtrak] disappeared” when the organization was broken into different business units; a six-month fight in 1996 to prevent a new US Congress from taking back money granted by the previous Congress; and a one-year wait for the Surface Board of Transportation to arbitrate an agreement between Amtrak and Guilford. Because public money is invested in the project, the federal government and the Maine Department of Transportation both studied the project at length, holding up funding and progress for six months apiece. According to Davis, “No other public project has been subjected to as much scrutiny” in the state of Maine.

Whether Amtrak arrives May 1 or not is still very much in the air. Based on previous blown deadlines and Guilford’s negotiating history, it’s not a tremendously good bet that Portland will have service on this date.

However, some feel that the company is softening its stance toward passenger service on its track.

“Guilford has seen that the state carries a stick behind its talk of passenger trains and is starting to come around,” explains Mark Sinclair of the Conservation Law Foundation.

Still, professor Colgan says, “its absolutely possible they could delay it further.”

Noah Bruce can be reached at nbruce@phx.com.