(The following story by Tux Turkel appeared on the Portland Press Herald website on May 20.)
PORTLAND, Maine — A founder of the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad is trying to turn the tourist attraction into a 3.3 mile transportation link that would skirt Portland’s Eastern Promenade and connect the waterfront with Hadlock Field.
Phineas Sprague Jr. is talking with city and state officials about extending the 10-year-old line and transforming it into a form of mass transit that – like the cable cars of San Francisco – would become a symbol of Portland.
His group is seeking federal funds to help offset the estimated $1.6 million cost of the project, which would be built in phases and completed in 2008. The venture would eventually involve the purchase of modern engines and passenger cars, better suited to mass transit than the historic equipment.
But there’s a roadblock ahead on the tracks: Sprague would like the train to follow an abandoned track right-of-way through the heart of Bayside. The city strongly favors a route next to Interstate 295, parallel to a proposed Amtrak corridor, as part of its overall redevelopment plan for the Bayside neighborhood.
The Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. and Museum is a nonprofit organization that operates a collection of two-foot railroad equipment, including boxcars, coaches and steam locomotives. Some of the antique equipment was built a century ago and carried passengers and freight in rural Maine. Two-foot railroads use rails two feet apart, narrower than the standard gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches.
The railroad and museum are located on Fore Street in the historic Portland Company complex. Steam locomotives – including Maine narrow gauge engines – were built there a century ago. Sprague owns the complex.
Trains now run back and forth on a 1.5-mile waterfront track below the Eastern Promenade. The railroad, a growing tourist attraction that entertained 27,000 riders last year, is a scenic trip. But it doesn’t go anywhere.
“We realized,” Sprague said, “that the railroad needed a destination.”
It’s still too early to say when an expanded train would run, where stops would be, or what a ride would cost. But with revitalization plans moving ahead for the city’s Bayside neighborhood, Sprague is making a new push.
Sprague and city officials have talked off and on for years about the benefits of extending the line to the baseball stadium at Hadlock Field. On average, more than 6,000 people attend each Portland Sea Dogs game, Sprague said, and a train running to the stadium would relieve parking problems and attract more fans. A train connecting the waterfront and Old Port to Bayside also could prove popular with cruise ship passengers, Sprague said, as well as downtown workers.
To become an efficient, clean form of transportation, the railroad could purchase modern, narrow-gauge equipment that’s available in Europe and New Zealand. Engines could burn biodiesel – an increasingly-popular blend of petroleum and vegetable oil – to reduce air pollution.
All this sounds great to city officials. But the city and railroad have a basic disagreement over where the train would run and how it would cross Franklin, Preble and other busy city streets between the East End and the ballpark.
Sprague is promoting a route that would roughly follow an abandoned right-of-way known as the Union Branch. Weed-covered vestiges of this corridor can be seen, for example, between Marginal Way and Somerset Street in Bayside. He favors the route for its historical significance, and its proximity to the downtown.
City officials say that route is no longer practical. The city wants to eliminate the Union Branch corridor as part of its master plan to redevelop Bayside. A better route for the narrow gauge, they say, is in a new corridor between Marginal Way and I-295, where a northbound Amtrak connection has been proposed.
Jeff Monroe, Portland’s transportation director, said city officials have been meeting with Sprague and have expressed their reservations about his preferred route.
Joe Gray, Portland’s city manager, also has met with Sprague and told him that the city wants to make the expansion happen. But it won’t do so at the expense of its Bayside plans.
“If the train can be accommodated, that’s great,” Gray said. “But I don’t want the Bayside plans held hostage by the railroad.”
In its application for federal funding, the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad recognizes that a conflict exists.
Any bid to extend the railroad past the East End also faces a physical hurdle – the city’s sewage treatment plant. Sprague said it will cost an estimated $350,000 to go around the plant. That appears to be the largest physical obstacle to the line, he said, and a prime reason the railroad is seeking help from Maine’s congressional delegation to advance its federal funding request.
In the meantime, Sprague has been talking to neighborhood groups and business owners in Bayside to drum up support for the train. He’s scheduled to make a presentation next month to a committee of the Portland Regional Chamber.
Godfrey Wood, the chamber’s chief executive officer, said he wasn’t aware of the route dispute. But being able to spot the train from the interstate could be a plus for tourism, he said, because it might entice travelers to get off the highway and check out Portland.
“I just love the vision of it,” Wood said. “It would add a lot of character to the city.”