New Hampshire Northcoast Railroad (NHN) Discussion

The FURX 5509 leaser for the NHN is reported to be on SEPO today (Saturday)
Was at Ayer at noontime. Unknown if it will be dropped at Ayer or Lawrence
for forwarding on EDPO. SEPO seldom, if ever, stops at Dover, so it might
continue to Portland and be brought back to Dover on another job. No
recent photos that I have seen on the web so far...

Leaser FURX 5509 for the NHN on SEPO today.
Starts at 4 minutes 15 seconds. Don't blink.
Thanks to DPL films for the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0vARQcvBNc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FURX 5509 was the leader on the NHN southbound and the PAR DOBO train on Tuesday 9/1

Any track work taking shape for upgrades and expansion north?

b&m 1566 wrote:

RRFAN wrote:What is the New Hampshire Northcoast schedule?

This question seems to come up a lot.

The closest thing to a schedule I believe are south bound trains to Dover during the afternoons, Monday - Thursday. Pan Am crews take the train to Boston at night and return to Dover in the early mornings before the morning commute starts. NHN crew takes the train to Ossipee in the AM Tuesday - Friday. I know there is a shuttle run mid-day but not sure if its limited days.

Will any of the upgrades be taking place this year? (extension north and line upgrades)

From my experience over the past month or two, at least on Tuesdays, the NHN train usually passes through Wilmington on its way to Boston between 11 and 11:20 at night. It's usually right before or right after the outbound commuter rail train to Lowell. Wilmington is neat because they have flashing strobe lights to alert passengers to oncoming trains - so you get a brief heads up that something is coming, They don't slow dowm very much for the station or the interocking/switches.

Once or twice I've caught a Guilford local trundling by with 5-10 cars in that same 11-midnight window.

Some NHN foliage action from yesterday afternoon.

NHN at Union Meadows by Eric Reuter, on Flickr
NHN through Lebanon by Eric Reuter, on Flickr

Umm..Lebanon?

eustis22 wrote:Umm..Lebanon?

Thats Lebanon Maine. Looks like the Prospect Hill Rd crossing to me. Awesome shots Eric. Thanks for posting.

eustis22 wrote:Umm..Lebanon?

Yes, fogg1703 is right, taken from the north side of Prospect Hill Rd. NHN/Conway Branch is all in NH, except for 1500 ft or so where it runs from Milton into Lebanon and back into Milton. Most of the train is in NH in the photo.

Does NHN use one crew for a Dover-Ossippee-Dover turn similarly to Pan Am with DOBO-BODO?

The same folks that bring her north in the AM, return it in the PM

Did NHN or interested customers (ie. Colemans) ever respond to the states RFP for the Conway Branch? We know GER did.

b&m 1566 wrote:Did NHN or interested customers (ie. Colemans) ever respond to the states RFP for the Conway Branch? We know GER did.

No. That sand pit Madison customer NHN wants is on the OOS trackage, which requires moving forward on the Conway Branch Restoration Study recs before there's even a basis for issuing an operator RFP. An RFP for Ossippee-North Conway would be worthless absent any action on that all-important prerequisite step.

Given how intensely specialized NHN is on handling aggregates traffic, even if they were interested in exploring non-contiguous operating rights there's nothing up there that remotely fits their business model unless it involves going through Madison first. The BS&G majority stake in the railroad establishes some pretty cut-and-dried boundaries for how far they'd be willing to stick their necks out to dabble in speculative business. They're a parasitic appendage to BS&G that's common-carier in name only. NHN's prospects for growth in non- sand/gravel carloads comes from shooting free throws everywhere they can in-between pickups at the monster sand pits...something they're starting to do a bit more of on the existing mainline. But for genuine expansion territory, "Madison or bust" is pretty much the only way the BS&G overlords would see any point behind putting out feelers for those RFP's. It would take an infusion of new minority investors jumping in because they want to push for more common carrier / non- BS&G-serving business to really change NHN's business calculus.

While I agree with most of your assessment of The NHN might, I remind you ,they handle quite a bit of non BSG business in the form of tank cars to Rochester. On occasion they have had to handle the tanks and no sand. Since the end of the big dig in Boston I would think any added business would be in there favor. No?

Very interesting F-Line. Do you know if the gravel they are after in Madison is an existing operation?