"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

Interesting to the see the main didn't get rail up to the interchange. That means there are no plans for through trains (and they will just pull into the yard for setoffs and pickups) as of now or they aren't done.

Is the mill at Rumford back up after the upgrades? Is anything running predictably anywhere on D1?

There was a lot going on in Rumford during the shutdown. I was recruited out of retirement to work
10 weeks managing parts and tools for the electrical contractor working on replacing the press section
of #15 Paper Machine. The other large project was retubing C-Recovery boiler. Work also involved
renewal/replacement of a lot of the smaller parts on #15 Machine as well as work in the pulp mill and
the lime kiln; all told there must have been a couple dozen different contractors involved in different
parts of the mill. #10 and #12 paper machines continued running using stored pulp and steam from the
co-gen plant while the pulp mill and #9 pulp baler were down for the duration. I re-retired after Labor
Day with testing on #15 supposed to begin on the 12th with everyone expecting working out the bugs
and fine tuning might take a while. I saw the westbound Rumford train at Danville Jct. this morning
about 10 AM and while I didn't get a car count it didn't look like a big train.

Meanwhile- what would Fink Sr. say...

He would say "that yard office looks awful habitable let's board it up and stick a job site trailer there instead."

Not exclusive to "D1," but an interesting article that was front page of the Maine Sunday Telegram yesterday. https://www.pressherald.com/2023/10/08/ ... nevitable/

petahgriff8316 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 6:52 am Not exclusive to "D1," but an interesting article that was front page of the Maine Sunday Telegram yesterday. https://www.pressherald.com/2023/10/08/ ... nevitable/

I wondered if someone was going to post that someplace. While I understand the concerns with hazmats, I think they missed the boat regarding all the maintenance and upgrade work that CSX has done already and continues to do. I wouldn't be surprised to see a follow-up OpEd from someone there in the next week or two.

A real Woodward & Bernstein.

Let's add more oversight to something that has largely worked for a hundred years. Oversight that will likely cause the railroads to incur additional costs and wasted time that will be passed on to the customers of which have already left New England in droves. But at least it will make the locals feel important.

I don't feel informed enough to have an educated opinion, but it was pretty crazy to see a PAR train on the front page of the MST. A penny for the engineer's thoughts.

If they are so concerned about the trains why are they standing so close to moving trains in the pictures? I'm not a photo expert but those people look like they were photoshopped into those pictures.

Last night NEPW went before the Portland Planning Board seeking approval for a new ~60,000 sq. ft warehouse facility on Read St just south of their existing warehouse along the D1 main. The plans presented didn't show any kind of rail connection and rail service and they never mentioned rail service in their presentation. Is NEPW closing their rail-served facility on Quarry Rd and moving operations to a non-rail served location?

I read the plans to some extent, they either intend on keeping the Quarry Rd. location open or did not mention any potential closures.

Found this quote interesting from a series of meeting minutes from January. Link for anyone who wants it: https://portlandme.portal.civicclerk.co ... 5/overview

Q: What will the new building be used for? Possibly a marijuana growing operation? Hazardous
materials?
RC: Definitely not a marijuana growing operation or hazardous materials. We will be looking to
have a similar client to the ones that use the current buildings on site, which mostly consists of the
temporary storage of dry food goods. A client has not been found yet though.

So it seems more like an expansion of operations rather than a replacement? Also bear in mind this is dated by almost a year so they may have found a client already. Must also concede I only gave it a skim so if anyone else sees something different, do tell. The plans shown certainly don't imply any usage of rails but also doesn't imply ceasing rail service to their Quarry Rd. spot.

Found crew with 7605-7542 working at Danville Junction this afternoon and followed then to Gray;
photos of westbound crossing New Gloucester intervale and approaching Penny Road overpass.

Cosakita18 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 7:31 am Last night NEPW went before the Portland Planning Board seeking approval for a new ~60,000 sq. ft warehouse facility on Read St just south of their existing warehouse along the D1 main. The plans presented didn't show any kind of rail connection and rail service and they never mentioned rail service in their presentation. Is NEPW closing their rail-served facility on Quarry Rd and moving operations to a non-rail served location?

The site plans show the remnants of a siding curving around towards the back of the building (coming from the direction of Read St.), basically following the existing treeline, but all the rail connections to that site were severed as part of the Downeaster extension; you can see them on Google Street View in the 2007-2009 timeframe (with a "5 Tracks" label on the flashers), and then freshly paved over in 2011.

My interpretation is, if their business called for it, they could possibly try to have it reinstalled and connect to the back side of the warehouse (I don't know anything about track geometry), but I doubt it's something they need short-term. I don't know if it's damage inflicted by PAR's service levels or just the relative scale of doing business in Maine relative to larger states, but small-to-medium consignees in general don't seem to find rail important here.

Crews have rebuilt the track through 6 of the 7 street crossings in downtown Auburn so far this
week but it looks to be a work in progress as track between the crossings is still the old rail. The
track in the crossings has been raised- Court Street has about a 8-10 inch hump with temporary
pavement and track alignment between crossings looks rough. City is doing quite a bit of paving
of these same streets so it will be quite an improvement when completed.