CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

What about the railroad industry attracts people with "brilliant" ideas, but also have little to no resources or experience to actually carry out those ideas? I've never heard of anyone try to start an airline an company with only a couple thousand dollars. To be fair, several shortlines were founded in this fashion, when a couple of railfans asked "What if we?"

Note: The author is guilty of this himself. I had the idea of buying up older grain hoppers, and leasing them out as a set to COOPs in the Midwest. I even went as far as officially incorporating a company for this purpose, using the name of a defunct Florida shortline. Never got anywhere for obvious reasons, but a boy can dream.

The Mid-Atlantic has James Riffin, we have Dan Bigda. I've met Bigda a couple of times, he is an absolute moron. He basically got fired from Vertex Railcar despite being a founding partner owning 35%. I can only reason that he must have inherited money and is looking to do something with it. He sees competitive issues with the G&W running both the NECR and the Conn River Line, makes sense in some regard, there is some overlap. So his plan is to have his firm, which has never operated a railroad before, buy BOTH the Conn River and the NECR. Classic Dan.

Here is his application to serve on the STB Advisory Board....another well thought out decision on his part.

https://www.stb.gov/filings/all.nsf/ba7 ... 244926.pdf

Hooooooleeeeeesmokes I need a drink after reading that

Maybe he should buy out Boston Surface Railroad?

I need two drinks... can't stop laughing this one is being reported as news:

https://railsandports.com/2021/03/pas-a ... ih6QETG4to

Mr Bigda tied up the North Brookfield Railroad ROW for 5+ years. Fascinating story of a little railroad that was leased from opening, there is a long thread somewhere. The town preferred having a railroad to a rail-trail!! Basically there are one or two really good industrial sites online, otherwise there is nothing they could have done that the Grafton and Upton wasn't actually doing. It's been 10 years now & I think the rail-trail is yet to open.

By contrast Boston Surface Railroad had agreements with the towns & RIDOT but not really preventing them from dealing with the MBTA, and they actually bought a locomotive, spent money on software and appear to have sold tickets for ?Polar Express? trains on behalf of the tourism council.

In looking over the latest filings, I note that, while Mass., NH and Vermont have all at least lodged an "intent to participate," MaineDOT and NNEPRA have done no such thing. Very surprising. Does anyone know what the deadline would be for doing so?

And now you all know why Tim Mellon wanted the sale to be a "one and done" transaction with 1 buyer. Let the buyer cut up the cookie on their own time. The Southern Gentlemen thought they could play catch up to all the first offers they ignored, and stonewall their opponents.
Instead all they have done now is opened the gates to this type of of insanity.

If I were in Jacksonville I'd be pulling my hair out. At least it's entertaining for us.

More filings posted today dated yesterday.... given the STB climate with acquisitions and the work ahead I wouldn’t be surprised if this one gets a stronger look based on the chairman’s comment yesterday.

I'm sorry but it is very apparent that none of these filers give two sh*ts about getting rail shippers in New England more reliable service. Reading these reminds me of vultures circling a corpse. It's disgusting, especially the "honorable' mentions that obviously did not read any of the substance that they signed.

The applicants must be going bonkers I know I would. Their only hope is that the board can reasonable wade through the BS and begin addressing the legitimate concerns and toss out the rest.

The only group with any legitimize issue are the ones arguing for competition over the Conn River Line (VRS and VTrans). All the others just want to use this transaction as a way to force though unrelated side projects.

J.B Hunt has sent in a letter of support. https://dcms-external.s3.amazonaws.com/ ... 301805.pdf

In case you missed it the STB latest statement:

The Board is also reviewing the proposed acquisition of rail carriers owned by Pan Am Systems, and Pan Am Railways, a Class II railroad, by CSX Transportation, Inc., a Class I railroad. The STB expects to publish a notice in the Federal Register on Thursday determining whether this proposed transaction will be classified as “significant” or “minor.”

All the talk regarding maintaining competition in the rail industry is a bit over blown . First off the railroads have a market share of about 7% nationally and I'll bet a lot less here in New England. The real competition is the trucking industry. Secondly the fact of Connecticut bring served by G&W exclusively is not a big deal. That state was the private playground of the New Haven for years. And that was when the state was a giant in the machine and metal working industry.