(The following story by Noah Bierman appeared on the Boston Globe website on November 8.)
PORTLAND, Maine — In the front of the train, commuters who call themselves the “train wrecks” laugh at self-deprecating jokes, sip Budweisers, and plan a retirement party for one of their own. A few cars back, you can hear only the rumble of wheels on the tracks and the clicking of laptops and Blackberries as the sun begins to set on the official workday.
The Downeaster between Boston and Portland, America’s fastest-growing intercity train route, is part neighborhood bar, part rolling office park. For many who rely on the train regularly, it is both. There is, after all, a lot of time to kill, 2 1/2 hours from the first stop to the last. Some get off in Haverhill, many stay until Exeter, and a few go all the way to Dover, Wells, or Saco as part of commutes that can last as long as six hours a day, enough time to fly to Iceland.
“Some people think I’m crazy, just to live in Maine and work in Boston,” said Jeff Hayward, an executive with United Way in Boston who lives in Wells and commutes more than five hours round-trip most days. “Maine’s a foreign country to them. People read, sleep, do work. It’s really relaxing.”
Higher gas prices, the train’s added service, and several promotions aimed at travelers going to baseball games or seeking medical treatment in Boston encouraged the train’s pace-setting growth spurt, a 36.7 percent increase in the year that ended Sept. 30, more than any other Amtrak route in the country.
On average, ridership on Amtrak’s 26 short-distance routes like the Downeaster grew by 17.5 percent for the year, more vigorously than long-distance routes, which grew by 10.3 percent.
The Maine and New Hampshire residents who commute to work on the Downeaster, about a third of the train’s passengers, say that what keeps them coming, even as gas prices decline, is the ability to work on laptops or to hang out in the dining car with train friends, instead of fighting traffic across some of the region’s most congested roads.
“I would have a stroke if I drove; I don’t know how people do it,” said Sharon Fernald, 38, a paralegal from Raymond, N.H., who has been riding since 2003.
Fernald is a charter member of the “train wrecks,” the group that talks about work, late trains, the economy, football, politics, and anything else that strikes them from their cushioned seats around the booths in the dining car. George Pringle, 68, a barber from Milton, N.H., was spending one of his last days with the gang last week, before a scheduled retirement and an end to his long commute.
Pringle, the self-described “old fart” of the group, sounded as if he would miss those hours.
“It’s not really like a bar,” he said. “It’s like a bunch of friends getting together.”
“It’s like a bar, if jails had bars,” shot back Fernald.
Even as the train grows in popularity, its finances are tenuous. A $6 million federal subsidy, which has covered nearly half of the train line’s $13.5 million budget during its first seven years, is set to expire in July. Ticket sales contribute an additional $6 million a year, while Maine has kicked in $1.5 million annually.
Governor John Baldacci of Maine considers the train an essential engine of his state’s economy and has agreed to increase the state’s share of the costs to about $8 million in his next budget proposal. But the Legislature has yet to sign on, and the state, like others, is facing cuts in other areas. Neither New Hampshire nor Massachusetts contributes operating expenses.
“It’s smart policy; it works on many different fronts,” Baldacci said. “If we could grow our economy, if we can increase tourism and economic development and more people work, that also helps in terms of balancing the budget.”
Last August, the Maine-based authority that manages the service added a fifth round-trip to Boston. This year, the Legislature voted to spend an estimated $35 million on a planned expansion to Brunswick, a less-frequent service that is expected to attract more day-trippers and vacationers than daily commuters.
Still, costs continue to rise. The regional authority that promotes and manages the service is planning to raise fares in January, by as much as $2 on some one-way trips. Currently, the highest one-way cost is $24, with discounts available for advance purchase and monthly pass-holders.
Jim Gill, 57, already spends $358 on a monthly train pass, plus more on MBTA subway tickets. The Scarborough, Maine, resident said it could be worse. He used to travel to New Jersey each week for work and rarely saw his family. Now he takes the Downeaster four days a week to Boston, leaving the house at 5:45 a.m. to get to his job at Gillette’s finance division by about 9.
“It’s nice to get on the train and just sack out,” he said. “Sometimes I have conference calls. I actually do conference calls on the train.”
The evening train home is his social time. He waits for train friends to get on at Durham: a 58-year-old US Forest Service employee, a 33-year-old chemistry professor, a 28-year-old web designer. They find a set of four facing chairs and hold “the big discussions” to make the time pass. Often, a Harvard librarian joins in.
The notion of train friends – people from different towns with different lives and different jobs who are thrown together by the mutual need to get to work – is not unique to the Downeaster. But the length of the commute helps strengthen those bonds among unlikely friends.
Hayward said his wife did a double-take when he explained that train friends whom she had never met were coming to dinner one night.
Susan Hess of Rye, N.H., said she realized that the friends were becoming a larger part of her life when her husband began wondering who these “train people” were. He finally met them at a summer cookout at Fernald’s house.
Hess, who started taking the train in April, said she learns something new from her train companions every day. They have probably learned some things about her as well.
“It’s kind of like talking to your hairdresser,” she explained. “You end up divulging things you wouldn’t think you would normally talk about.”