MARC trains could come to Delaware

Delaware and Maryland transit officials are discussing the possibility of extending MARC, Maryland’s commuter rail line – which now runs from Washington D.C. to Perryville, Maryland – as far north as Wilmington.

DART CEO John Sisson said that he will talk with Maryland Transit Administration officials next week and the service could begin as early as 2018, after the reconstruction of the Newark train station.

That project, which will increase train capacity at the station, will also allow additional SEPTA trains to travel to Newark from Philadelphia, Sisson said.

“We’re still in that planning process,” Sisson said. “Do you run a commuter rail service from Philadelphia to Baltimore, do you run Wilmington to Baltimore, or do you run Newark to Baltimore?”

DART is also evaluating the possibility of operating a commuter bus line to the U.S. Army facility in Aberdeen, Maryland, to serve military personnel who travel to that base from Delaware.

The cost of adding MARC train service to Newark, or Wilmington, is still unknown at this stage, Sisson said he will have to determine whether DART would pay for the cost of extending the line to Newark or Wilmington, or would simply pay the cost of operating the trains while they’re in Delaware. Perryville, Maryland, lies about 20 miles south of Newark.

DART pays SEPTA about $250,000 annually for every round-trip train that travels daily from Philadelphia to Delaware.

Last week, Sisson’s boss, the secretary of DelDOT, Jennifer Cohan, said that it is a priority to bring MARC trains to Delaware.

The only section of the Northeast rail corridor without commuter rail service is the segment from Perryville to Newark. That’s because, historically, there hasn’t been demand, Sisson said, but that market is growing.

“You see a fair number of Delaware license plates in Perryville taking MARC into Maryland,” he said. “I think Aberdeen has seen an increase in ridership on the MARC system.”

A project to redesign the platform at the Newark train station, and to add an additional track there, will begin next year and must end by 2018, in order for the Delaware Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project, to receive a $10 million grant from the United States Department of Transportation.

The project is jointly funded by Amtrak, the University of Delaware, and DelDOT.

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.