For those who attend Damariscotta’s esteemed harvest festival, Damariscotta Pumpkinfest & Regatta, annually, it’s all about the entertainment and laughter.

Sunday, Oct. 8, it will also be about the total Pumpkinfest experience: a scenic train excursion through Maine’s Midcoast, round trip, from Bath to Newcastle, with a stop to board additional passengers in Wiscasset. Festival goers will climb aboard Coastliner Excursions, to enjoy the vistas not otherwise afforded along Route 1, and be delivered onto the sidewalk, literally just above the festival. The return trip will leave after the festival, at 5:30 p.m., with the trip duration about one and a half hours. This one-day-only offering of the “Pumpkinfest Express” is a pilot trip, to sample the enhancement of train travel to and from Pumpkinfest.

“To board a train in or near your hometown and get dropped off right into the Festival is the epitome of the simple pleasure we try to offer,” endorsed Jed Weiss, executive director of Pumpkinfest.

“The Pumpkinfest Express can become the perfect solution to our traffic logistics, and offer relief to those regional residents on Pumpkinfest weekend, who aren’t attending the festival,”according to Lisa Hagen, executive director of Damariscotta Region Chamber of Commerce. “We’d like to see train excursion service grow throughout our region, while adding to the entire tourism experience year-round.”

The Rockland-based Midcoast Rail Service, Inc., is on track to add more Midcoast destinations to its Coastliner Excursions, stoking the vibrant event and tourism economy of Midcoast Maine. George Betke, of Coastliner Excursions, adds, “We all need to jump on the idea of convenient, clean travel into the small villages and towns of Maine for pleasure. We’re all selling ‘the experience.’”

Purchase tickets for Sunday travel on the Pumpkinfest Express to Pumpkinfest, Oct. 8, online and in advance only, at coastlinerexcursions.com. As the capacity for the self-propelled, fuel efficient train is 76 people, availability is quite limited.

Visit damariscottapumpkinfest.com for further details and information regarding events and their location, merchandise for pre-festival sale, schedules, maps, decorated pumpkin placement, parking and transportation, as the final information is set, often just prior to the festival date.