A sign indicates a quiet zone at the Stanwood Street crossing in Brunswick. The town council received approval for the zones Oct. 1 and now that construction has been completed, train operators have 21 days to comply. (Hannah LaClaire / The Times Record)
BRUNSWICK — As the Amtrak Downeaster passenger rail line expands service to Brunswick and Freeport, Brunswick is hoping some new rules will provide relief to residents fed up with excessive train noise.
Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority announced last week it is adding three round-trip services starting in Brunswick and Freeport, with two during the week and one on the weekend. The changes go into effect Monday and are expected to add about 12,000 riders annually, according to rail authority director Patricia Quinn.
The services will allow morning commuters or those traveling for business to get to Boston by 8 a.m. on weekdays. Northbound visitors will be able to arrive in Freeport and Brunswick earlier in the afternoon on the weekdays — prior to 4 p.m. — which Quinn said would be better for shoppers heading to the outlets. Afternoon and late night trains are also expected to be popular with sports fans and concert-goers.
The additional trains come at a time when Brunswick is trying to cut down on excess noise from the trains by establishing a quiet zone from the Freeport town line and Union Street Crossing after months of noise complaints, some from as far away as Topsham.
The Federal Railroad Administration regulates when, where and how long a train must sound its horn. The zones prohibit the sounding of horns in the designated areas. Even in quiet zones, trains may still sound horns in cases of emergency, grade crossings (two long blows, one short and another long) or for other safety concerns.
The town council received approval for the project at its Oct. 1 meeting. The approval required some safety measures such as 30-foot-long “nontraversable curbs” on each side of the center lines at the Stanwood Street and Church Road crossings, as well as signs designating that train horns were not allowed. These safety measures cost about $25,000.
While not everyone likes the new curbs, Town Councilor Kathy Wilson said there have been one or two complaints so far), the alternative, full gates, would have cost about $500,000.
The town already has one quiet zone at Maine Street and Park Row.
The majority of complaints received were from people who live nearest the tracks, Wilson said, and many of those were people who complained about the layover facility before it was built. Now that has been constructed and some of the initial kinks have been worked out they have not had as many complaints, she said. The building cuts down on the some of the additional noise created when trains are starting up or idling. This is especially important now that there will be an early morning train leaving before 5 a.m.
George C. Betke Jr., president of Transport Economics Inc., a Newcastle consultancy, and a frequent critic of the rail authority, said that with the new early and late trips, “people should be thrilled about the quiet zones.”
For non-residents like Angelynn Amores, whose business, Women’s Fitness Studio and Spa on Stanwood Street, the train noise has become a natural part of living in Brunswick.
“Is it ideal? It’s a sound we’ve gotten used to,” she said, calling it “charming.” The spa does not abut where the train goes by, and when it passes the fitness studio, some people use it as a push to work harder, she said.
It would likely be a different story, she admitted, if they were dealing with the train as residents. To her though, the new services just mean that more business potential will be coming in.
Officials always intended to offer these additional services, Quinn said, so as to offer more balance to the rail and to allow the crew to start and end their days in the same place.
Currently, the rail authority has to pay to transport workers from the last station to the first at the end of the day, so evening that out will mean the change is “not measurably more expensive,” she said.
Under the new schedule, the 693 Northbound train on the weekends will end service in Portland at 2:45 p.m. and will not continue to Freeport or Brunswick. They hope to fix that in the spring, Quinn said.
There are three-weekday trips and two on the weekends under the current schedule, which served 47,901 passengers going to/from Brunswick between July 2017 and June 2018, a 27.5 percent increase over the previous year.
As it stands, Quinn said that on the early morning trains there are usually at least 300 people by the time the train reaches Boston, and she expects many of the passengers who get on in Portland are traveling from other parts of the state.
She expects, however, that it will take time before they see that annual 12,000 or 33 per day passenger increase, despite the draw of the afternoon train for holiday shoppers visiting Freeport.
“The key to public transportation is frequency and it takes time to build a market,” she said, adding that they have received numerous requests for more service to and from Brunswick, the rail’s northernmost point.
For the full updated train schedule visit amtrakdowneaster.com/printable-schedules
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