Maine Northern Railway (ex-MMA lines operated by EMR/NBSR)

They just put in 100ft sections of NEW 115lb from Saint John to McAdam about 3 years ago.

I've uploaded some pictures from my various travels.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wildmanwilly/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CN9634 wrote:They just put in 100ft sections of NEW 115lb from Saint John to McAdam about 3 years ago.

Wonder why NBSR did not get these 100' sections of 115lb. rail welded into 1400' strings so as to get welded rail on their main line?

CN9634 wrote:I've uploaded some pictures from my various travels.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wildmanwilly/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lots of great shots! Thanks for posting.

Some interesting things heard over the air waves yesterday.

Irving is still supposedly looking to double current fiber shipments off MNR. One reported problem with the plan is that woodchip cars are apparently not to easy to find right now. From the sounds of it they are looking at making fiber the next "cash crop." Logical in that they control the source, have their own mill so the traffic will never stop completely, and it has a lot less tendency to go boom.

Apparently the Irving roads are also getting a new dress code, all black clothing provided by the railroad. Including black jackets with vizzy striping. Crews couldn't help but smirk at how fun it would be to wear a black vest when its 100 degrees in mosquito country...

And an observation. They have picked up a log customer off their lines. A handfull of loaded log racks were on Pan Am SJWA yesterday. Reportedly they are bound for upstate NY. Small potatoes to the 200+ cars of fiber moving further east, but a start none the less.

KSmitty wrote:Irving is still supposedly looking to double current fiber shipments off MNR. One reported problem with the plan is that woodchip cars are apparently not to easy to find right now.

Has MMA's chip cars gone off the property? The cars are not included in Fortress's Sale Agreement.

fogg1703 wrote:

KSmitty wrote:Irving is still supposedly looking to double current fiber shipments off MNR. One reported problem with the plan is that woodchip cars are apparently not to easy to find right now.

Has MMA's chip cars gone off the property? The cars are not included in Fortress's Sale Agreement.

Irving is already employing quite a few xMMA cars. This includes centerbeams under different owners (BR and IANR come to mind). It also includes at least some xBAR chip cars relettered for the Andersons (AEX) I don't know if these cars were sold off prior to the bankruptcy, but Irving was using them last August. I also don't know what MM&A had left for chip cars.

What did MM&A actually have left for chip cars? Besides So LaGrange thhey didn't have any chip customers left.

KSmitty wrote:What did MM&A actually have left for chip cars? Besides So LaGrange thhey didn't have any chip customers left.

I wasn't sure what happened to the thirty or so cars in the MMA 33600 series. When did the chip transload in Lac Megantic yard stop, 2012?

fogg1703 wrote:When did the chip transload in Lac Megantic yard stop, 2012?

I was only thinking Maine. I'm not sure about the Megantic chip operation...

Reports on Twitter of a working fire inside the chip building at Fulghun Fibers in Baileyville. This is the chip operation that feeds Woodland Pulp.

News story on fire at Baileyville fibre mill.
You have to wait through a commercial
before the slide show.

http://wabi.tv/2014/03/04/fire-fulghum- ... ileyville/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks to Dick H. for the link!

An interesting rumor has surfaced. The Chinese backed Woodland mill is interested in re-establishing rail to the port at Eastport. Apparently the volume of trucks moving between Baileyville/Calais area and Eastport,a distance of almost 30 miles, is so much that rail would be much more economical. Keep in mind, they just announced $120M investment into two brand new tissue machines... no doubt with a direct rail connection to Eastport, they could bring large volumes to the port for international markets. Such a connection would also give NB Southern a direct connection to a Maine port... Also keep in mind that Eastport is handling some container traffic at present time (nothing substancial) and wind mill parts, amongst other things.

In such a scenario, you would have Maine's three ports, Portland, Searsport and Eastport, each serviced by three different railroads. With Portland developing on its own, and some prospects for Eastport, one wonders if Searsport will get left in the dust. The dredging project is cruical to future growth no doubt. A direct rail connection to Eastport is no doubt a game changer, and also with private investment, I'm sure MaineDOT and Federal Grants (TIGER?) would be much more willing to make a 50/50 match (or something to that effect).

Stay tuned.

I'm assuming if this happened the cost to put the Calais branch back in would be too much for Pan Am to even consider it?

carchecker wrote:I'm assuming if this happened the cost to put the Calais branch back in would be too much for Pan Am to even consider it?

Yes. 2 Big factors, the traffic would be Woodland to Eastport mostly, no reason to even need the Calais Br from Ayers Jct to Brewer. And also because the railbed is owned by the SOM as far as Ayers Jct. And based on Mountain Division plans, the Rockland Branch, B&A's Northern Division, etc...MDOT doesn't like to lease back to the previous owner/operator, so even if they did rebuild the Calais Branch its unlikely PAR would run it.

Bonus for this project, if it happens, the rail line is semi-intact from Washington Jct to Ayers Jct last I knew. Meaning with some crossing work its conceivable a train could run from Woodland to Ayers Jct with very little money spent. Eastport would be more of a trick what with the line from Ayers-Eastport being Sunrise trail.

Also worth noting, back when Cate Street introduced plans for a BioCoal machine in Eastport the rendering provided with the article/release included rail service. So certainly not the first people to think about some rail in Eastport again.

There has been some discussions of repairing the track from Calais to Ayres Junction and building a warehouse and transload to trucks for Eastport . There is no rail from Ayres Junction and the ROW runs through Pleasant Point Indian Reservation and has built over in some locations since it was abandoned in 1978. The old ROW went into the docks in Downtown Eastport and the new Dock would require a new row on land the State does not own. It would need a lot of new business to warrent a lot of investment.