Portland Waterfront Rail Ops (Yard 8, Intermodal, etc)

Doesn't Nestle sell both of those types of water under the Poland Spring brand? They do list the source on the bottle but I don't think it necessarily has to be from a spring to be sold as Poland Spring water. Many articles I've read about Poland Spring's expansion in Maine mention wells and other water sources. Several years ago they wanted to buy water from the Kennebunk Kennebunkport & Wells Water District, which gets its water from a brook. The water would have been sold under the Poland Spring brand.

Poland spring distilled water & sparkling beverages are not 100% spring water and not labeled as such.

They pump it out of the ground just as fast as they can bottle it. No time to let it trickle out of the ground at its own leisurely pace. Whether is from a well, spring or city tap makes no difference. Poland Spring, or Nestle, is merely the name on the label.

So it seems the town of Madison is really trying to get them to look there. Is there even any usable rail close by?

The Madison Branch extends past Madison all the way to North Anson, but it's in appallingly bad condition (especially being unused for several years now), and would need to be completely rehabilitated (very unlikely considering Waterville is only about 20 miles away).

MERailFanJay wrote:So it seems the town of Madison is really trying to get them to look there. Is there even any usable rail close by?

Nope. Madison Br has been mothballed for at least 2 years. Its completely spent. The line is smoked from the from the sub roadbed on up to the rail. But Madison is only a 40 minute dray to the Waterville IM terminal, actually making it a pretty good spot for a PS plant. And Madison is another of those desperate mill towns that would likely sell their soul (or in this case, their water rights and tax code) for some jobs.

Bingo.

I strongly agree that a dray from Madison to Waterville makes a lot of sense.

It's interesting how as with passenger, freight moves really focus on density and frequency in order to be successful. Branch line operations are really time and cost intensive with little to no payback until volumes are very high and also consistent.

I hadn't fully absorbed this until recently when I actually got to work with some real world numbers.

Another point to ponder: Madison has its own municipally-owned power company. They have two rates listed on their web site — one for standard residential service and one for a specific type of electric heat which is also geared toward residential customers. I don't see any information about rates for business or industrial customers, but I wonder if they would have any ability to undercut CMP's business/industrial rates as a way of incentivizing Nestle to build in Madison. It's hard to imagine this tiny utility having more leverage or buying power than CMP and/or CMP's global parent company, and their web site gives the impression that they're perhaps no longer in the generating business (although a footnote solicits RFPs for a large scale solar farm)... but maybe there's more than meets the eye.

Anyway... just something to think about.

At least in Mass, municipal utilities tend to have marginally cheaper rates than commercial ones. Primarily because there's no profit margin, and they can operate with very few employees.

I briefly worked for a small municipal utility a few years back with <1000 customers, and the entire department consisted of 8 employees - 4 linemen and 4 office staff, run out of a small garage and a converted bank building. All payments had to be made by mail or dropped off via the drive-thru retained from the building's days as a bank, so very low billing overhead. True, they bought power from National Grid instead of generating their own, but they bought it at wholesale rates, and I bet their markup was noticeably less than National Grid's residential rates.

All that said, I doubt something like this would be significant enough savings to factor into Poland Springs' location decision making.

Good points. I'm just wondering if it could tip the scales. Let's say that Lincoln and Rumford offer Nestle x dollars in tax incentives, and Madison says "we'll match them on the tax incentives AND we can save you 2¢ per kWh over the best rate CMP offers" ... that might be enticing. I'm just speculating but I would imagine that electricity is a huge expense in pumping water out of the ground, filtering it, pouring it into bottles, packaging the bottles, etc.

In retrospect, I wonder if that prospect was a contributor in their wanting to buy water from the Kennebunk-Wells Water District several years ago: Kennebunk has its own municipal power company too.

Madison Power was definitely a factor in the decision of Backyard Farms to locate their tomato growing operation there.

Business News:

Bottled water overtakes soda as America’s No. 1 drink. Americans now drink more bottled water than soda. Bottled-water consumption in the U.S. hit 39.3 gallons per capita last year, while carbonated soft drinks fell to 38.5 gallons, marking the first time that soda was knocked off the top spot, according to data from industry tracker Beverage Marketing Corp.

GU1001 wrote:Poland spring distilled water & sparkling beverages are not 100% spring water and not labeled as such.

I'll quibble on this one: I drink their sparkling water with lemon (sold in a 6-pack) regularly, and it is, in fact, labeled as spring water and includes the "One or more of these sources..." legend.

Quibble is completely justified. My memory failed me, must have confused another brand. Apologies.