Rockland — A proposed schedule for the pilot Downeaster Amtrak passenger train service to Rockland is being developed, with the first trains possibly pulling into the Union Street station in May.

City Manager Tom Luttrell met last week with Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority.

Quinn said Tuesday, Nov. 14, that the pilot program is still in the exploratory stage. The next steps are to check the tracks between Brunswick and Rockland to see if they meet the needs of the equipment.

Between mid-December and mid-January, the Rail Authority will hold forums in communities where the trains will stop -- Rockland, Newcastle, Wiscasset and Bath -- to gather public feedback.

Possible schedules are still being developed, but the current proposal is for the service to run May through October on weekends. The tentative schedule calls for a train to leave Boston at 5 p.m. Friday and reach Rockland at 10:30 p.m. The train would then return to Brunswick, where it would stay overnight.

The manager said the Rail Authority would like to see added lighting where passengers would get off the train. The railroad station in Rockland is owned by the Maine Department of Transportation.

On Saturdays and Sundays, a train would leave Boston at 9:45 a.m. and arrive in Rockland at 3:20 p.m., Quinn said. The train would then leave Rockland at 3:55 p.m. and arrive back in Boston at 9:25 p.m.

This schedule attempts to attract Boston-area residents who want to avoid the heavy car traffic on summer weekends.

"This looks good on paper," Quinn said, but added that the public meetings are aimed at receiving responses from community members along the proposed new route.

"This would be an enhancement to the coastal communities," she said.

City councilors have individually voiced support for the expansion of train service -- although limited and seasonal -- to Rockland.

No cost for tickets has been developed yet. Quinn said that would wait until after the track inspection.

Seasonal excursion passenger service between Rockland and Brunswick ran for 12 years under the operation by Maine Eastern Railroad. That service ended when the state ended its contract with Maine Eastern Railroad and awarded a contract to Central Maine & Quebec Railway.

The train station, bought by the Maine Department of Transportation from the city in 1996, was renovated and a restaurant added in 2006.  DOT also owns the 57-mile branch from Brunswick to Rockland.

Regular commuter train service ended in Rockland in 1959. The train station was then used for decades as Rockland City Hall until the city moved to its current municipal building on Pleasant Street in 1996.

The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority is a public transportation authority created in 1995 by the Maine Legislature to develop and provide passenger rail service between Maine and Boston and points within Maine.

Freight continues to run on the line, largely for Dragon Products. The cement plant sends rail cars about five miles on the line from its Thomaston plant to its dock on Rockland’s South End waterfront, where a barge is then filled and product shipped to the Boston market.

The line has operated with freight traffic since May 1990, five years after Maine Central Railroad abandoned the spur.