Maine rail bill gets initial (state) Senate OK

http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=162916&zoneid=500

AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Senate called "All aboard" Friday by initially approving an amended rail funding bill to expand passenger rail service from Portland to Brunswick and open up connections to Rockland, Lewiston-Auburn and points north and west.

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Known as "An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Governor’s Task Force on Passenger Rail Funding," the bill now will go back to the Legislature for final enactment, Roger Fenn, communications director for the office of Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, said Friday.

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"The issue that everyone has to remember is that although there is a focus on passenger service, equally important is the freight railway connection," Edmonds said Thursday in a telephone interview. "If you get to Brunswick, that’s a nexus point for going to Rockland and beyond and to getting to Augusta.

"On the way to Brunswick, you get to Yarmouth Junction, which connects you to Lewiston-Auburn and beyond," Edmonds added. "It’s a key piece of rail that makes a lot of connections."

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got ripped up to make snowmobile and 4 wheeler trails. When I went to college in the 90s there was no rail service and no bus station. If you went to U Maine Farmington you had to drive to get there. But only a few decades before the trains were still running. I knew a girl who said her mother would take a train down from the County to Farmington for college.

Now that there is a renewed interest in rails, do you think we'll get those snowmobile trails back? :P

If the paper industry wants to save its bacon, they (or someone else) will have to resurrect those lines to haul pulp wood - the days of the log truck are numbered...