ROCKLAND – Up the road, the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad shuttles an average of 5,000 people to and from the Common Ground Fair in Unity over the course of three days, according to Finn Kelly. Kelly would like to see the same possibilities in the Rockland area for the Maine Lobster Festival and Atlantic Blues Festival. With rail service that’s only been in operation for about a month, and contending with an immense amount of logistics necessary to coordinate rail service, Cumberland and Knox Railroad won’t be a conduit for festival passengers this year, but fun excursions are still a proposed ticket for this fall.

Outside the Roundhouse in Rockland, trains are moving again, thanks to a lease that was negotiated in January for the property owned by Maine Dept. of Transportation. C&K RR was one of five submitted proposals to MDOT last autumn to be able to operate the Rockland branch.

The contract was awarded April 30. The first rail shipment under their tenure came from Brunswick to Thomaston on May 31 using Dragon Cement’s own railcars. For now, those rail shipments are only occurring a little at a time, as needed. Out of state, a used three-car excursion train powered by generator has been purchased and will arrive in Rockland once logistics of getting it here are finalized.

In the physical sense, C&K is in charge of the day-to-day aspects of the railroad, with Finn Kelly and Larry Goldman helping to make that happen. C&K Railroad runs the trains, inspects the tracks and makes sure the cross signals are working. It’s also the leasee's responsibility to drum up new business, according to Kelly.

Inside the office, the wheels are turning. The venture looks toward freight as a way to pay the bills, excursions to involve the community, bring excitement back into rail travel, and the use of existing infrastructure to move the masses. Kelly and Goldman have been doing their homework, making connections from Rockland to Bath with area Chambers of Commerce, the state’s Dept. of Economic Development, locally sharing their enthusiasm as a member of the small business world, and using the lessons learned by the Roundhouse’s nine predecessors. They want to coordinate with restaurants, museums, historical societies, schools, municipalities, and special fundraising events.

“We’re doing it differently than prior operators,” said Kelly. “There’s been seven or eight railroads to run this line in the last 30 years or so. What we’re doing differently is reaching out to the community, to find ways to work together to make things happen. That’s really how this will succeed, is having these partnerships, these relationships, being involved in the community. That was not something that I think was done, to any great effect, with any other railroad since I’ve been here.”

It took time for Kelly to realize that, at the end of the day, the C&K is a small business. When they started, he said, they didn’t appreciate the impact of being a local company run by local people. Having grown up here, he, too, watched businesses leave the state, leave the community. Yet, Kelly and Goldman both live in Knox County. They have roots here.

“We know the people we’re working with, and people are excited about that,” said Kelly.

Kelly is also the Government Affairs Manager for Maine Switching Services, based out of Unity. MSS offers rail car and locomotive repairs and works with paper mills in Skowhegan and Rumford. As well, Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad, based out of Unity, is a nonprofit tourist railroad similar to what Cumberland and Knox RR hopes to develop out of Rockland.

Kelly and Goldman know the business of trains, and they are cautiously optimistic for the future of Cumberland and Knox Railroad.

As Kelly said: “If the railroad is doing well, then the community is doing well. And vice versa.”

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com