by BostonUrbEx
When is the last time anything even ran on those tracks in Lyndeboro and Greenfield?
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BostonUrbEx wrote:If it were a normal railroad, I'd maybe think they just want the business. But I highly doubt Pan Am really cares about this tiny business. It is just a sad little personal feud.To underscore that point...the filing only seeks adverse discontinuance on the 5 miles to the quarry. Not the whole of MBRX's territory to the paper mill at the end of the line which is still somewhat of a going concern for theoretical future carloads. Billerica is A-OK with letting MBRX develop new biz at the mill or anywhere on the desolate stretch west of the quarry; they don't want any of that for themselves. Only there's that small matter of MBRX having already starved to death and gone out of business from loss of the conveyor belt before they even have a shot at making frenzied desperation call to the mill. So that situation quickly takes care of itself. Hence, 15 miles worth of very lightly worn Wilton Scenic-upgraded track is going to be abandoned for the inevitable rail trail within 2 years of the trackage rights going dark out of sheer futility of NHDOT even attempting to issue a new carrier RFP.
b&m 1566 wrote:Doesn't the state own the rail line passed Wilton Station? How can Pan Am, take that over if they don't own it?When Guilford got rid of Wilton to end-of-the-line the tag-team sale agreement to NHDOT and rights outsource agreement that gave birth to MBRX had a pertpetual boobytrap clause allowing them to take back operating rights at-will milepost-by-milepost through an adverse discontinuance procedure. It was the conditions NHDOT and MBRX had to agree to in order to take the line active instead of letting Guilford salt it all over in abandonment, and also a stopper preventing Guilford from killing off Nashua-Wilton when they got rid of the rest.
b&m 1566 wrote:Does this takeover include ownership going back to the B&M, or is this just an operational takeover?Just the ops for the 'conveyor belt' train between the quarry and the mixing plant. The property sale to NHDOT was final, but the rights transfer was booby-trapped. It means PAR will have to absorb all maint responsibilities that MBRX was paying for...but note that because the booby-trap clause lets PAR specify which mileposts they're taking back they don't have to take the whole thing to end-of-track. They're just doing the 5 miles from their division post to the quarry where current business exists, and leaving the outer 15 miles from the quarry to the dormant mill customer @ end-of-track to rot. MBRX will still technically have rights to those outer 15 miles to 'develop new business' because PAR didn't specify those mileposts in the adverse discontinuance filing, but at $0 in near-term revenue potential out there they're out-of-business all the same and past the quarry will revert to "Active / No Operator" when MBRX's inevitable folding vacates the rest of their lease with NHDOT.