Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR in trouble

Moderator's note: this article is relevant to this forum because the BML was controlled by the Maine Central for several years.

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Railroad in default; city may give it the boot

BELFAST (Jan 18, 2005): The city that built the Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad and ran it for 120 years may soon give it the boot out of town.

Read the rest of the story here:

http://waldo.villagesoup.com/Government ... ryID=30321

That's about right... after all those years, people want them out? Man oh man...

Yup,chalk up another one for "the beautiful people". Articles in the local papers,the past half decade,have implied that the railroad ,"didn't fit the image",that the NIMBY/YUPPIES had for the Belfast waterfront. Simply put,"they" viewed it as an "eyesore". Is there an industrial/distribution base for the BML to rely on? No! Was there mismanagement of the "tourist" trains"? Probably some,but rules governing the usage of the Belfast "yard" and tourist operations were under city scrutiny and control(No regular Swedish steamer operations). Thus,most "tourist" customers had to be derived from Unity. Now there is a place ALL the tourists seek out!! Belfast is a great location for walk in tourists,like the Portland Waterfront for the Maine Narrow Gauge,not Unity,Brooks and Burnham!!(Many of us railfans tend to forget that our numbers alone can't support these marginal operations.) The good paying fish and poultry processing jobs at Belfast are gone,but they too were "grubby" in the eyes of the annointed elites. So now the area has MBNA, a "politically and enviromentally correct" business in the Belfast area. Yes.$8.50 per hour! Progress? Bud

$8.50? What type of company are they? Manufacturing?

Call center for a financial institution. Bud

MBNA is a credit card company. They sell what are known as "affinity" cards. For instance, if you have a credit card that is branded by L.L. Bean or Amazon.com or Delta Airlines, it is most likely an MBNA card.

They were paying $8.50/hr when I applied there six years ago. I'm kinda surprised, and yet NOT surprised, that they're still paying $8.50 today. $8.50 was a living wage (just barely) in 1999, but not so much in 2005.

Oh, THOSE people! So this is another area that doesn't like companies that are into manufacturing or anything that pays well and provides employment to locals.

Sounds like MA

That is partially true, but not entirely. There are a few vocal folks who hate anything industrial... but I think, in general, most people in that part of Maine would welcome good-paying jobs, whether they're industrial or technological in nature. Part of the problem is that a lot of those manfacturing jobs have either been moved to the soutnern part of the U.S., or to foreign countries.

The Bangor Daily News had an article about a new development in the former Eastern Fine Papers mill in Brewer Maine. Yup, it's going to be "a center for culture and the arts". The developer said the 41 acre site could bring "artists and performers from all over New England, someday, maybe even by train" (right!). The mill closed last year, laying off the last 250 workers. I wonder what the laid off millworkers thought when they saw that article, their $15-$25 an hour jobs being replaced by that.
What a shame.

mick wrote:I wonder what the laid off millworkers thought when they saw that article, their $15-$25 an hour jobs being replaced by that.
What a shame.

Yes, it's kinda depressing, but at least the property is going to be used for something. I suspect there's a lot of hazmat crap that will have to be dealt with first. And it isn't the fault of the developer of the arts/culture center that the mill shut down. Americans demand low prices on everything. Logically, you can't sell something for cheap if you're paying your employees high wages. You have to go somewhere where the employees will work for cheap, and then you can sell your product for cheap. That's the way things work.

Hmmm... choice between working in a call center for $8.50/hr or a chicken processing plant for $8.50 or less/hr. And which building would you rather live next to??? Hard choices! Even when the BML was serving the poultry industry in the late 70s/early 80s, the crews were making about $4-5/hr, if I recall.

By the way, let's not forget that primary reasons the poultry industry left Maine: The cost of rail freight for grain and cost of moving outbound chickens to market. The Delmarva penninsula was better on both counts.

Chickens! Did they ever have STATE OF MAINE boxcars full of chickens, or just potatos?

LOL

That would have been cool, but I think the State of Maine cars were strictly for Bangor & Aroostook potatoes.

It's rather funny, and really sad, that the Belfast City Council doesn't see the potential in a railroad themed park at the historic waterfront. A lot of communities would kill to have a romantic focal point in such a location. Once it's gone, it'll be gone forever, and people will later wonder why it happened.