Pan Am Southern / Patriot Corridor Discussion

would it be growth though? or would it be more of an alinement of trains and frieght. is there enough growth potential for a second train to Ayer? North south might create new business but east west I am not sure about.

First Mechanicville local (probably ME-1) currently up for bid will be effective July 5th.

1400 OD Mohawk (no established crew point at XO yet), unsure of days off.

roberttosh wrote:The biggest issue going forward with any Intermodal growth is a lack of space. Not much room for expansion at the current Ayer site.

Lift capacity is going to be an ongoing issue at Mechanicville as well. It is the smallest yard being built recently and has the least number of lifts per year. When you break down 35,000 annual lifts over a 365 day year, it doesn't amount to a whole lot of capacity. With no new intermodal trains in sight for the region, this whole project doesn't seem to be working as intended.

Don't you think NS had a pretty good idea what they were getting into and traffic on the horizon when starting this project? I don't think the project is going any different than what was planned.

And nothing on the railroads has ever gone differently than originally planned? I'm just saying that maybe the whole Mechanicville yard isn't going to be as big of a deal as many railrans had hoped for...

What did railfans hope it was going to be? The blueprints for the yard were published pretty soon after the project was announced. A couple auto tracks, a couple IM tracks and a few freight / storage. Not the largest yard in the world. I don't remember anyone foreseeing another Selkirk.

People are happy to see a once bustling yard, then a field, returned to a portion of it's former glory. More jobs help too..

Yes, but to think it would handle plenty of new traffic from the south, east, and west was a bit overblown. So far it has done well to smooth out some operations in the area but large expansion of service and "filleting" are not going to be happening soon.

I don't believe that NS ever stated that, "as of 29 June 2012, we will be handling X new trains and Y numbers of new container business in Mechanicville". Nothing ever happens quickly enough for you, SJ. They have a business plan; it's in effect; and they are DEVELOPING traffic to support that plan. You don't open a new facility and expect traffic to magically appear overnight to fill it to capacity.

Lack of capacity, not lack of traffic, is the issue.

They expanded the Ayer auto facility, so am guessing they could do the same at Mickeyville if they have to.

SecaucusJunction wrote:Yes, but to think it would handle plenty of new traffic from the south, east, and west was a bit overblown. So far it has done well to smooth out some operations in the area but large expansion of service and "filleting" are not going to be happening soon.

And I ask again, where are/did you read this claim? It's false.

They built it because they outgrew Kenwood in Albany and SMS in Guilderland can't handle all the autoracks, plain and simple. They also do not own or control either of these facilties (they control Mechanicville now). Also, the location is more convenient for trucks to access I87 versus navigating downtown Albany to get on/off I787. There were no press releases or articles in the paper stating they built the yard because of overwhelming new business in the pipeline. The B&M owned the land, it was a natural move..

Have you even been there before?

You probably won't see fillet and toupe operations because they now have money to engineer raising the tunnel clearance to double domestics.

newpylong wrote:You probably won't see fillet and toupe operations because they now have money to engineer raising the tunnel clearance to double domestics.

newpylong,

What exactly is this?

Obviously NS had the money in the past and could have done this if they wanted to. Was there an issue on PARs side of the deal?

Reading between the line(s) something appears to have changed in terms of the urgency/possibility of changes to the Hoosac in the near future.

Can you elaborate further?

It was reported a few months ago that PAS got some funding, I believe for preliminary engineering, for lowering of the track bed through the tunnel to allow clearance for double domestics. Currently, the only doubles that can go through are a domestic and a ship container.

Correct. I can't find the news articles as they all require you to login now but here it is:

http://olver.house.gov/index.php?option ... le&id=1130

Ok. So here's what I'm understanding right now (feel free to fill in the blanks)....

1. PAS got a government grant for preliminary engineering to increase/lower the tunnel clearance.

2. PAS does not have a budget for any necessary bridge work to increase clearances.

3. PAS does not have a budget for actual construction on the Hoosac tunnel to increase clearances.

The statements here appear to imply that PAS is going to skip single stacking operations at Mechanicville, NY and proceed to tunnel work that will allow full domestic double stack clearances.

So have PAR and NS made some kind of a decision to proceed to work on the tunnel solely because they now have a government grant for preliminary engineering (which is only a small % of the total cost)?

I can't imagine this small(er) expense was the only thing holding things up.