BRUNSWICK, Maine — Five years after the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority announced plans to build a 60,000-square-foot layover structure to house trains overnight at the end of their line, the controversial $13 million facility will open to the public Saturday afternoon.
The Amtrak Downeaster Layover Facility at 2 Turner St. will be open from 2 to 4 p.m., likely the only chance to see it before trains are housed there overnight in late November.
The building can shelter three six-car trains on its three tracks, will allow late-night trains to Brunswick to remain there overnight and head south again the following morning, rather than returning to Portland to overnight.
The rail authority plans to add a third round-trip from Brunswick to Boston at 11 a.m. each day beginning Nov. 21, rail authority Executive Director Patricia Quinn said Friday. An updated schedule will include an additional evening arrival in Freeport and Brunswick from Sunday through Thursday nights, and the late-night train from Boston will go through to Freeport and Brunswick on Saturdays and Sundays.
The heated facility also will allow maintenance to be performed indoors, and it will allow ice and snow to melt off trains.
Neighbors have opposed the facility’s location since it was first announced in 2011. Organized as the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition, the group won a 2013 Superior Court ruling that found the rail authority failed to notify property abutters of its permit application.
The court vacated the Department of Environmental Protection’s approval and required the rail authority to submit another application, which was approved in June 2015. The group appealed in July, but the board unanimously upheld the permit in November, The Forecaster reported.
In a video shown at the rail authority’s annual meeting earlier this month, Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority Special Projects Manager Jim Russell said the building is “as soundproof as engineering can make it.”
“This new layover facility is critically important because it will provide a safer and more efficient working environment for mechanical and operating crews, and will enable Amtrak to provide more Downeaster service to both Freeport and Brunswick,” Quinn said Friday.