Politics & Government

Portsmouth Area Residents Want Boston Passenger Rail Service

NH Department of Transportation officials do not have that included in their proposed NH State Rail Plan.

Portsmouth area residents urged NH Department of Transportation officials to restore a Portsmouth to Boston passenger rail service the city once had 50 years ago.

More than 50 Portsmouth area residents came to City Hall to give the state agency their feedback on the NH State Rail Plan’s recommendations, which do not include the restoration of the Portsmouth to Boston rail service.

“The Downeaster works in 2012,” said Robert Hall, a member of the TrainRiders Northeast group that helped bring the Amtrak passenger rail service to Maine and New Hampshire in 2002. “Around the country more people are riding trains than they have in years.”

Find out what's happening in Portsmouthwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“We have the people will,” Hall said. “The problem is the political will is not here in New Hampshire yet.”

He also said very few members of the NH Congressional Delegation support the expansion of passenger rail. If a commuter service were established that began in Portsmouth or even Rochester, people would use it, he said.

Find out what's happening in Portsmouthwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Raymond Faulkner of Eliot, Maine, who grew up in Portsmouth, said he was a freshman in high school when Portsmouth last had passenger rail service to Boston in 1962. He said there is definitely a need for the same service today.

“I think the Downester draws from the west of the I-95 corridor,” Faulkner said. “There is a market for the Eastern 95 corridor.”

He said businesses and hotels could offer train and stay packages.

Cliff Sinnott, executive director of the Rockingham County Planning Commission,  said they looked at restoring rail service on the Hampton line 10 years ago and found there were lots of obstacles and expense and not enough adequate ridership to support it.

He said the easier project to connect Portsmouth via Rockingham Junction has not gone very far because they have not been able to assess its condition or the money it would take to restore it.

Steve Pesci of Portsmouth who works for the University of New Hampshire in Durham as the director of special projects for campus planning, said more students are choosing to use the Downeaster to commute to and from school than cars.

“We’ve seen five straight years of declining parking permit sales from our students,” he said.  Meanwhile, Pesci said train ridership has gone up 20 percent during that time period.

“The younger generation is no so wedded to their car,” Pesci said. “They get it, our Legislature does not.”

During their presentation, NH DOT officials and Ron O’Blenis, a consultant with HDR Engineering in Boston who is studying the state’s future rail needs, pointed out that passenger rail ridership and rail freight use by businesses is on the rise.

O’Blenis said NH passenger rail ridership is growing because of the Amtrak service that exists. The Downeaster has gone from 200,000 to more than 500,000 riders from 2002 to 2010.

He said 4.7 million tons of freight transported by rail, or 7.3 percent of all freight in NH and a 75-car freight train is the equivalent of 280 trucks.

He said NH freight railroads employ about 200 people. Also, O’Blenis said U.S. Department of Labor statistics show that NH has 245,000 jobs related to moving freight, rail shipping supports 17,000 of those jobs.

O’Blenis said federal government statistics also show that freight tonnage shipped by rail will grow in New Hampshire by 53 percent by 2040.

Kit Morgan, administrator of the NH DOT’s Rail and Transit Bureau, said the NH State Rail Plan recommendations are focused on maintaining the rail services and infrastructure that exist and also call for the state to work with other New England states and the federal government to expand the passenger and freight rail services.

“We think it’s important to continue to work with the other New England states.” Morgan said.

Morgan said one of the biggest issues that needs to be resolved is that New Hampshire needs to work with Maine and Massachusetts to make the rail lines uniform. Currently, many rail lines in New Hampshire are designed to accommodate car weight limits of 263,000 pounds, but rail lines in the other two states are designed to hold car weights of 286,000 pounds.

Morgan said the NH DOT also wants to design overhead bridges with a clearance of 22-feet, six inches to better accommodate bigger railroad cars.

He said the state agency also has to preserve and maintain state-owned abandoned rights of way for future rail use and also continue to acquire abandoned rail lines such as the Hampton to Portsmouth rail line.

As the NH DOT continues to pursue federal funding for the proposed New Hampshire Capitol Corridor that would accommodate a high-speed passenger rail from Concord to Boston, Morgan said the state must maintain its current rail services.

For example, Morgan said 170,000 passengers spend an average of $11 million annually to ride on excursion trains such as the Conway Scenic Railroad and the Hobo Mountain Railroad.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here