Grafton & Upton Railroad (G&U) Discussion

Trains Magazine News Wire has a story on the new G&U locomotives:
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... th-mp15acs

Fair use quote:

To help with growing business, Massachusetts short line Grafton & Upton has purchased three EMD MP15ACs from CSX Transportation. For the past year, the 17-mile railroad has relied solely on a leased former Milwaukee Road GATX MP15AC, which has worked well, according to general manager David Swirk. The three roster additions are ex-CSX Nos. 1158, 1160, and 1191, built as Seaboard Coast Line Nos. 4008, 4010, and 4221 in 1977-1978. The five older units, plus a road slug, all still are stored on the property. Each unit will be evaluated to determine whether it will be retained by the company. G&U F7 No. 1501, built in 1952 for Bessemer & Lake Erie, is in secure storage, and its future will be considered along with the other locomotives.

If memory serves most of the problems are electrical in nature with the current fleet, they just all hit them in the space of a month... Traction motors, wiring glitches, etc. Not impossible to fix, but a massive headache when six units need them...

I imagine the "growing business" includes the pending opening of the propane transload facility at N Grafton but switching tank cars in and out of that two track facility shouldn't consume more than 1 of its collection of 4 MP15ACs (three ex-CSX plus the GATX leaser). So my question is for what other "growing business" will the other incremental power be used? I think W Upton yard is already pretty full so perhaps there is more transload business coming on-line at Hopedale? Or maybe G&U is eyeing some long rumored spin-off of CSX branch lines at Framingham?

Related query: Does G&U owner Jon Delli Priscoli have any functional relationship with Cape Rail or Mass Coastal (Iowa Pacific's holding that dispatches and maintains the Framingham Secondary)? He used to be CEO of Cape Rail but I don't know if that is the case now that IP owns the operation.

GnU has no official relationship with Cape Cod rail operations.

johnpbarlow wrote:I imagine the "growing business" includes the pending opening of the propane transload facility at N Grafton but switching tank cars in and out of that two track facility shouldn't consume more than 1 of its collection of 4 MP15ACs (three ex-CSX plus the GATX leaser).

I'd imagine the leaser will be returned as soon as the ex CSX units are put online. If they do utilize one unit to switch the propane terminal, that would leave two "road" units to get the heavy wallboard, tank cars and pellet hoppers over and around the G&U's line. That's a redundancy I'm sure they are missing now.

In the Trains Magazine article G&U GM David Swirk said "...that he expects that the leased unit will remain in service on the railroad..."

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... th-mp15acs

Bruce Nelson got photos of the ex-CSX MP15ACs (1191, 1158, and 1160) on the G&U property at N Grafton on February 25, 2018:

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... ex=1&key2=
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... ex=1&key2=
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... ex=1&key2=

On a different topic, is G&U losing a long time customer, Weetabix?

http://www.telegram.com/news/20180228/c ... e-180-jobs

??? - Not that I know of. Clinton isn't in the area that's served by the G&U. It's on the PanAm Worcester main and CSX's Agricultural Branch (or whatever it's called these days). The latter has a spur into the mill, but I don't know whether Weetabix uses it.

I thought G&U facilitated boxcar transload to truck at N Grafton dock by Westboro Rd(?) for Weetabix for 10 years or so?

Right, the boxcars spotted at N Grafton were Weetabix cars...

Reisner Scrap was the last CSX customer in Clinton, but 2016 was when they closed. The Lancaster Branch -- to Lancaster Mills, the site of Weetabix -- got cut off just beyond Reisner when a wooden trestle went on fire, allegedly with assistance.

Weetabix is a very sad story. Looks like globalization and corporate turnover destroyed this. And sounds like the city wasn't paying attention to their sixth-largest taxpayer. Maybe a combination of tax breaks, direct railroad service and local hands-on ownership could have had a different outcome.

It always seemed weird to have a cereal manufacturer in Massachusetts. You would expect them to be in Arkansas or Iowa or Alberta.

Weetabix's flagship product is similar to Shredded Wheat. Weetabix is practically unknown in US, and I assume they were doing lots of private-label manufacturing.

Weetabix is part of Post Consumer Brands, as in Post cereals and many others including "private label" (aka. "store brand") food products.

Post has owned Weetabix for less than a year. So, new owner "rationalizing" plants.