Boston area (BO-1)

Hearing BO-1 should be going up for bid soon. Ciment Quebec in Everett wants 5 day a week service.

Not too surprising since LA-4 loses too much time cabbing to their train from Lawrence.
Ciment Quebec does have a trackmobile,

d

Crew would report to Cement Quebec property inEverett.
Unsure if trailer or office space.

They're also fighting with CSXT for the dirt business out of the Wynn site.

Interesting problem at CQ since they tangle with CSX attempting to go to the scrap. But
the way CSX is not doing much in Everett these days, it might not matter so much.

Heard the same thing about the Dirty Dirt situation, which is probably why CSX still runs
to Everett with any regularity...keeping the flag flying...

D

CSX is grasping at straws for the dirt. From what I hear, it is actually fairly clear cut that the B&M (so, PAR) has the only rights.

Will LA-4 be abolished with the advent of BO-1? LA-5 was originally intended to ferry cars between Lawrence and Boston because of GLX impacts to reduce the burden on LA-2 and keep LA-2 strictly to Lowell Line customers, but LA-5 has since become an extension of LA-3. Perhaps LA-4 will instead become the Lawrence-Boston "road" crew.

I've heard rumors lately of CSX wanting to rid themselves of all freight east of Worcester...

There's only the one road freight into/out of Framingham, the less than daily local on the Agriculture branch plus a reducing frequency of locals SE of Framingham (Mansfield, Middleboro, Readville, Walpole, Franklin, etc). There is decent business to G&U and the Westborough transload facility. Speaking of G&U, there has been discussion for a few years now that they would get some of the CSX track/rights around Franklin via their rebuilt Milford track but the rebuild seems to be in limbo these days.

If CSXT wanted to get rid of freight east of Worcester they already would have when they pulled out of Beacon, and not be trying to get this dirty dirt traffic. So it is just rumors, though would be nice if they did.

As for LA-4, too early to tell what happens to rest of the locals down there. At 30-40 cars a day 5 days a week BO-1 will be busy as it is.

CSX still serves New England Produce Center in Chelsea via the Grand Junction. While it might make Boston Line sense to hand that traffic over to PAR, if PAR were to get NEPC, then PAR/S and NS would probably get the interchange from originating carriers instead of CSX continuing to get it, so CSX is probably gonna be kitten-in-the-manger pretty much the same as it is with the old auto yard.

johnpbarlow wrote:Speaking of G&U, there has been discussion for a few years now that they would get some of the CSX track/rights around Franklin via their rebuilt Milford track but the rebuild seems to be in limbo these days.

It's not in limbo. G&U's very small, and had to assign resources to get their propane transload constructed and serve growth at their 3 yards that's exceeded all expectations. It's the nicest problem for a small business to have! CSX is more than happy to give them all the time in the world to catch up on the Milford reconnection, because they're the ones getting the spike in interchange revenue from G&U taking care of first priorities first. The handover will take place when they're ready. Supposedly overhead trackage rights have already tentatively been secured as far north as Walpole Jct. so the carriers will have a #2 interchange spot at that yard to do as they please with.


CSX can't get out of Everett quite yet because they still have to serve Houghton Chemical once or twice per week at Beacon Park on that same job. So even if they had PAR do haulage for them with set-offs at Barbers to pocket the ops cost savings of cutting a pretty small daily...they'd still have to run the same train with the same crew for nearly the same distance every time Houghton needed a measly 1 or 2 tankers. Harvard U. and the Boston Redevelopment Authority are negotiating with Houghton for a relocation so that parcel can be redeveloped contiguous with the rest of Harvard's Beacon Park land. Unlike Beacon Park's other former rail tenant Romar Transportation, who CSX actively negotiated a relocation for out to Hopedale on G&U, Houghton insists that any new site has to be in or immediately adjacent to Boston...on a rail line next to a highway interchange. And they are driving a hard bargain with those requirements (as is their right), resisting all offers to-date in order to drive up the asking price to can't-refuse sums. It'll happen soon enough and they'll be re-situated within 2-4 years, but the city and Harvard have to be the ones to pony-up; CSX is just a spectator until then.

I'm not surprised that they're still chasing Everett customers in the meantime. Even if it ends up PAR haulage tacked onto the back of an LA-# and interchanged later in the day, those would still be CSX--not PAR--customers served. They retain the control, retain the ability to take the job back if they need/want to terminate the haulage agreement, and earn more money exercising that control than if they just outright sold their Everett rights to PAR. If they get out, it'll be via haulage agreement and PAR seeing enough extra free-throw revenue in the haulage fees to be fine with tacking on the extra daily carloads...not any sort of competitive cease-fire or outright abdication of territorial rights. It's still good long-term business for CSX to be competitive and in-control at a port like Everett. The question is whether they find it better business to be competitive and in-control while leveraging somebody else for ops cost control. Both railroads very easily have something to gain from 'coopetition' in that scenario.

My ASSumption is if PAR (this wouldn't be a PAS customer) got NEPC, their cars would continue to come from CSX, likely Barbers to avoid PAS fees.

jaymac wrote:CSX still serves New England Produce Center in Chelsea via the Grand Junction. While it might make Boston Line sense to hand that traffic over to PAR, if PAR were to get NEPC, then PAR/S and NS would probably get the interchange from originating carriers instead of CSX continuing to get it, so CSX is probably gonna be kitten-in-the-manger pretty much the same as it is with the old auto yard.

That wouldn't be how it works at all. They would never ever shed territory that opens the door for a competitive intrusion onto the southside. This is simply a case where 2 roads have access to the same site, and seeking a haulage agreement so one can pocket some easy ops savings on the side while the other pockets some easy carload fees on the side. I'll scratch your back while you scratch mine, nothing more. NEPC is inside Everett Terminal; the workers there see LA-4 pass by their spur to service other spurs every day several hours apart from their own CSX pickups. It would be completely transparent to both customer and receiving railroad if those goods got tacked onto the end of LA-4, delivered 6 hours later to CSX at Barbers, then lashed onto the next CSX train passing through Worcester en route to the produce's usual loading spot in Framingham. That's it. Just a haulage agreement, no change in which RR holds the customer agreement. And most definitely no change in territorial control. If PAR is habitually late at Barbers or otherwise providing poor service, CSX could terminate the haulage and resume self-service. If CSX sees bigger customer opportunities worth re-launching a dedicated job to Everett...it can terminate the haulage agreement at a one-time penalty and resume service. No skin off anyone's back except PAR losing some extra haulage fees it was getting virtually free at no extra cost.

If there's any deal-making that changes who serves Everett when, it's going to be a very small one like a mutually-expedient haulage agreement. Not anything that constitutes even a *minor* territorial game-changer.

F-line to Dudley via Park » Thu May 19, 2016 8:30 am
That wouldn't be how it works at all. They would never ever shed territory that opens the door for a competitive intrusion onto the southside.

That was my point, however inelegantly stated. There may a day's delay in the post-Beacon Park scheme of things. Throw in a hand-over to PAR off the GJ and that could add at least another day to NEPC. A POSE drop at Ayer, Lowell, or Lawrence would add even more time. Unhappy consignees start thinking about other modes.

Chances are this is not going to happen before Mellon cashes out. No sane owner who wants to plunk down a large sum of money for D2 is going to tolerate canning everything everywhere because the crews are too thin to make their rounds in allotted time and yard ops too sloppy to get them out on the road in time. No more taxis from North Yard in Salem; those Peabody jobs get their butts back to Lawrence by shift's end. No more sitting limp and looking confused while Somerville storage space disappears; they'll rebuild the rest of Montvale Yard or something if that's what it takes to make the best of the crappy storage situation they inherited. The Stony Brook, Lowell Branch, and Worcester Main aren't going to be allowed to run at third-world speeds and fourth-world track conditions anymore. NS grabbing everything west of Ayer makes playing the two Class I's off each other the be-all business strategy, giving CSX a far bigger and more strategic interchange role (look, for example, at how important SEPO's going to become in that New World Order). They will have no trouble doing reliable daily set-offs at Barbers when the post-Mellon regime gets settled in. That's not very far off. If it takes 2 years for Harvard and the BRA to ink the deal with Houghton's relocation and 18 more months to build their new local factory...that's pretty much when we expect the railroad's going to be sold and partitioned off. Times right for CSX. They get to size up the new regime's suitability to task framed around a conversation about SEPO possibilities and Barbers. If they like what they're hearing from the new guys about that big-picture stuff, then Everett haulage is a pretty natural smaller-scale segue for testing the waters.


And no...there'll never be an interchange on the Grand Junction. CSX won't dish off Everett haulage until it can expunge ALL of that Framingham job, its crew positions, and the need to maintain anyone's qualifications on the inner Worcester Line for anything but a dire emergency. There's no cost savings for them if they still have to scurry through MetroWest and Allston some of the time on that same freight slot. That means no decisions on Everett a single day sooner than the moving vans pulling out of the Houghton parking lot.

If PAR serves the produce center, that means the cars are either coming in from CSX at Rotterdam for an eventual drop off EDPO or they're sailing straight to Portland to turn out on POED. Either way, that adds a lot of time. You're looking at one more day at a minimum. The cars could end up dropped in Lowell instead of Lawrence, which could mean an additional day on top of any other issues.

There's no easy solution here. CSX is pretty much stuck with the business unless it wants to outright kill the business. It would almost be easier to orchestrate a relocation of NEPC to somewhere between Worcester and Framingham, but this doesn't pan out because of how many related facilities and support facilities are well-established in NEPC's surroundings. There's an entire industry in Chelsea/Everett thriving off NEPC's location, and in turn, they're also thriving off of their proximity to the city.