Gordon Kontrath was in the garage at his Old Ferry Road, Wiscasset, home on Nov. 13 when his wife Lynne hollered to him.

“She said, ‘Did you see that train? It said Amtrak on it.’

“I said, ‘You’re kidding me.” Kontrath is used to seeing trains go by. The couple lives right near the tracks in the area of Chewonki Neck Road. But it was always Maine Eastern Railroad’s train going by with freight or passengers.

Kontrath figured that because the Amtrak train his wife and her sister saw Thursday afternoon was headed further up the coast, it would have to come back through Wiscasset at some point. He hoped he would be home when it did, and he was, on Friday morning.

He was outside sweeping the snow off his wife’s car before she left to get groceries when he heard a train horn. It had a different tone than the sound of the Maine Eastern train’s horn. He got his camera from the house and made it to the end of his driveway in time to take several pictures of the Amtrak going by.

“I’m all for railroad service. I love it. So seeing this (train) coming through here was quite a surprise,” Kontrath said.

Since Amtrak’s Downeaster service ends in Brunswick, he wondered what the train was doing up this way. So he called the Wiscasset Newspaper.

Amtrak spokesman Craig Schulz was still on the southbound train Friday morning, somewhere between Freeport and Portland, when the newspaper reached him on his cell phone.

Schulz confirmed that not only was he on the trip, but so was Amtrak President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Boardman. (Boardman was in a meeting and did not immediately return a request for a call.)

They were on the train at the invitation of Maine Eastern, Schulz said.

Maine Eastern Railroad’s general manager Harmony Llanto commented in an email Friday afternoon: “Amtrak’s executive-inspection train was originally set to stay in (the) Brunswick yard and without a layover facility where they would be able to power the train set, we at Maine Eastern Railroad invited them to come to Rockland to plug their train here at our station and stay in the Midcoast for the night,” Llanto’s email states. “It was a great success and we enjoyed visiting with the Amtrak management.

“There (are) no future plans for a partnership with Amtrak or any plans for Amtrak to expand service to Rockland at this time. We simply hosted them for overnight,” Llanto writes in further emails.

Schulz said it’s always good to look at places Amtrak isn’t serving, but that he wouldn’t want anyone to get the impression an expansion is imminent.

Asked about the purpose of the ride to Rockland, Schulz said, “To take a look at the tracks and share information at the invitation of Maine Eastern.”

The run up Maine’s Midcoast was part of an interstate trip Amtrak officials were making that started in Albany, New York, on Wednesday, Schulz said. He said he and Boardman were very impressed with the scenery in and around Wiscasset.

Kontrath said he hopes Amtrak will eventually expand north, so that his relatives south of Maine can take it to come visit.