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

RRBUFF wrote: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.

I believe you are speaking about the Perry, ME as the spot for the transload. Yes there are some issues with getting direct rail access, but in rural Maine I think it is less of a task.

One question I would have about the Woodland tissue project: Will their pulp production increase, or will the tissue consume some of the existing production? Either way, it is ludicrous to think that a rail link is now needed to the port due to tissue production, of all things.

I Think the mill is running near Max pulp production now. They have been finding other markets for their pulp. Containers trucked to Saint John. The tissue business is another way to market their pulp and increase its value.

Correct me if I'm wrong RRBUFF but I think I read somewhere (ANR&P perhaps) that all of the tissue production would be for the New England states and the midwest. Nothing would go to Eastport for export. The mill has also been shipping anywhere from 3-6 boxcars of wdpulp almost daily as well. Not exactly sure where to but they are going west once they arrive in McAdam.

Photos by Dan Nelson:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=477809" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=477757" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Veering off topic a bit. People watching NBSR will notice the 8 leased SD40-2's are slowly losing their HLCX reporting marks, in favor of NBSR. 6200, 6315, 6318, 8144 have been confirmed to have been re lettered. These were the first 4 to arrive on property, 6200/6318 in December 2011 and 6315/8144 in March 2012. I believe you will see the remaining 4 (6304, 6319, 6332, 6340) also relettered as paperwork switches over and/or leases expire.

6200 and 6318 had both been painted into Irving colors with "HLCX" sub lettering below the cab. The lettering has been replaced with "NBSR."
6315 and 8144 are both in HLCX paint, 15 in red/maroon and 8144 in blue. Both have simply been patched with "NBSR" marks.

How far north on the MNR are the six axles allowed? Oakfield, Squa Pan?

Ashland.

CN9634 wrote:Ashland.

Thanks. Are six axles allowed on the Woodland Branch?

fogg1703 wrote:Thanks. Are six axles allowed on the Woodland Branch?

Nope. Not unless something has changed recently. Woodland seems to be common haunts for the 4 leased HLCX GP38's (the former UP units still in armour yellow.).

Being as the CMQ and NBSR are pretty well tied together (And not to mention the NBSR as a whole is bigger than the CMQ), can we get a dedicated NBSR thread or something?

Aside for that, 50 1267 empties were on an NB Southern job headed for Maine. Chances are they will find their way down PAR but we shall see soon enough!

The crude empties ended up being set off in McAdam Yard where they are to be temporarily stored. Not sure od the reason why.

Same question as for CMQR in that thread- thinking about making my way up this fall and would like to try and get an idea of what is going on as far as how reliable moves are and when trains normally work. Hoping for info on basically the whole operation, as far as what days/times and/or how reliably trains move, be it Madawaska Area, Madawaska-Millinocket/Brownville, Houton/caribou/Easton branches, Brownville-St John, Woodland, etc. There's info about traffic, locos, trackage etc. but not too much about actual ops, so hopefully someone here can shed a little light on it.

Thanks!

Ill add what I can. Please keep in mind I'm not in the area like I used to be so I'm a bit out of touch...

MNR/EMRY is running jobs from Oakfield to McAdam, and reverse. They are running east today-west tomorrow, but will on occasion tack on another train if traffic levels warrant. They are running at least Saturday jobs too. They seem to be getting into Millinocket from Oakfield between 11 and 1.

If you have a smart phone, or will have ready access to the internet, I would HIGHLY recommend joining the "Rails NB" facebook group. They almost never miss an NBSR train leaving McAdam. So you have real good lead time on westbounds. But remember they don't necessarily stop in Brownville, or even roll through visibly anymore because of the cutoff.

^ Thanks!

Things aren't quite as good as I had envisione dtraffic-wise then- between the new wood moves etc. since Irving took over and had begun undoing Burkhardt's mess, and CMQ moving traffic from the west again, I was assuming there was at least one daily job in both directions on the main, PLUS whatever was running north of Brownville/Millinocket. It certainly had sounded like things were pretty busy before the MMA wreck, but I guess traffic to/from CMQ has a long way to go before we get back to that, then. Also thought a lot of the NBSR traffic was just moving around MMA via PAR, but apparently not the case. There had been daily or at least 5-6 day trains each way before, so with the new moves of wood etc coming out of the COunty (perhaps exaggerated?) I thought even with things to the west being shaky there'd be at least a daily mainline train either way. Definitely a bleaker picture than I was expecting, unless they are also running separate jobs that only go to/from Keag or some such.