Madison Branch

For those who railfan, I've been told this is the last week of service for the Madison branch. Get your pictures now.

CN9634 wrote:For those who railfan, I've been told this is the last week of service for the Madison branch. Get your pictures now.

Perhaps a bit more info for those of us NOT in the know...
Who does the Madison branch service?
Why would this be the last week of service?

Madison paper. Maybe 10 cars a job and probably about 3 days a week, if that.

An effort to reduce costs and its all going to trucks.

So truck to Ayer and then IM out of there or truck all the way?

They're only allowed five loads due to the horrendous track conditions anyway, and since PAR hasn't really invested much in the track, this isn't surprising.

I guess that seals the fate of directly serving the company pit in Embden as was previously discussed. Wasn't grant money used to rehab a couple of sidings to serve Cousineau Wood Products? Obviously the car loads never materialized.

Found it. It was a $1.1 Million IRAP Grant from 2005, rehabbing 4.23 miles of track from Madison to Cousineau in North Anson.

Here is a little further info from a Pan Am Clipper article.
http://www.guilfordrail.com/xpress/2006Q1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An Excerpt
"Pan Am Railways is currently rehabilitating 4.23 miles of Maine Central Railroad Company’s former Kineo Branch to
reconnect the tracks of the Madison Branch to North Anson, Maine for a new rail customer, Cousineau Wood Products.
The $1.1 million project is being funded through a joint effort by Pan Am Railways, the State of Maine Industrial Rail Access
Program (IRAP) and the Town of Anson. IRAP provides funding for rail projects that meet the State of Maine’s criteria for
development of industry that requires rail transportation. In order to qualify for funding, an extensive application must be
completed that identifies the need for rail service and quantifies the cost benefits that will be realized by the project."

GRS went north of Madison shortly after that project was completed, so clearly, the wood products place was not happy with the service or it went out of business.

Here is the wood products place as seen from Bing

http://binged.it/1ayvOjn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And here on Gmaps, with cars spotted on the track!

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Madison+ ... e&t=h&z=17" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

bwparker1 wrote:And here on Gmaps, with cars spotted on the track!

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Madison+" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... e&t=h&z=17

They look like MOW ballast hoppers. Last years D1 rehab involved trucking ballast from Embden to Waterville where a loader reloaded it into hoppers. Perhaps the line north of Madison was OOS last year? Anyone know when the last trip north of Madison was? Also I think the Cousineau sidings where billed as a "team track" of sorts for any commodity, any idea if they were ever used as such.

Seems the state would have gotten a bigger bang for its buck if they'd sunk money into the Madison Branch, where there's actually a significant customer, vs the Mountain Division and the Lewiston Lower. As for the end of service, am guessing that Madison Paper is discontinuing boxcar shipments vs Pan Am discontinuing service as that would have to go through the STB if I'm not mistaken?

Ave not seen any STB filing of any kind for this trackage.

I don't believe there will be an abandonment but rather an embargo.

Rumor has it the last trip WAS Friday. RR does not want to fix the track, the mill does not want to pay to have the track fixed, so the only other thing to do is b****h to the state loud enough and maybe we can own another 20 miles of track.

As of today the branch is still Active.

Active, but no trains. Mountain Division stayed active for a while with no trains.