CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

CPF66 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:32 pm The current owner of Dragon has neglected it for years. It should have been rebuilt many eons ago, but prior owners failed to make that investment. From what I gather, the plant has been worn out since the end of the Boston Big Dig. Since then the owners have limped it along. Currently they can only run the crusher at night, since it draws so much power it would cause blackouts in Rockland during the day. When its all said and done the plant needs $13 million in repairs to stay operational. Thats not including earth moving equipment and what not that needs to be replaced as well. They would have been able to access lower cost pet-coke, but the trestle they used to unload the cars on needs to be replaced. They ended up having a company from down south bring a excavator that straddles the cars unload them, which is why they sat for 3 or 4 months at the plant.

Whoever told you they could cause Rockland blackouts is wrong-- Dragon is tapped off its own 115kv feed with built in protection to the system. They can be tripped off if they 'create trouble'. They likely run at night during off-peak so they can have a better rate for the high cost per kWH (standard offer went up 60% in 2 years). I suspect energy costs and their more and more enviornmental issues are to blame in this too.

The further away the cement plants are, the higher the costs for New England construction. As I mentioned earlier, another cement company is in process of shutting down their "small" (and old) cement plant in Glens Falls, NY, feel they can serve "the New England market" from a newly expanded plant in Indiana. Maybe shipping cement across the country creates more net business for the railroads?

To the extent you can extend your length-of-haul within a market is every railroad marketer's goal. We're seeing this at work unfolding even in these earliest days within this acquisition.

To the extent the New England market can be served from that Indiana facility, Mr. Norman, Chessie originates the traffic, making for the potential fancy feast of a longer-haul, "local" move where she doesn't have to share at all, including using her ex-B&M to that end.

They haul straight to their Ciment Quebec customers in Everett and Bow, and must haul the the cars that go to Westboro, NH, (NECR, former Claremont & Concord, originally the B&M Northern Route) for Carroll Concrete at least as far as Palmer.

As for further north/east? You could set a watch to the Ciment Quebec trucks that come through town on 302, headed east. With the Mountain Division dozen miles east of here (Crawford being 16), they're headed somewhere that rail either doesn't go or isn't a competitive move. That or the traffic volume doesn't justify a revival.

A few years ago Ciment de Quebec was distributing product from a facility in Portland at SLR's
East Deering yard. When it closed there were comments about their ability to compete with Dragon
while another commenter remarked that Ciment de Quebec could make more money selling product
to China. I think I can also remember seeing Ciment de Quebec signs on a plant in East Baldwin, ME
near the intersection of routes 11 and 113.

Looking online, there's definitely a CQ facility there, but one of smaller operational scale. Trucking seems to be the most efficient way to serve that plant as the Mountain Division is a couple streets over.

I'm not an expert on cement logistics. However, I think that there is an obvious market for US cement. Lafarge and Cement Quebec both bring lots as in thousands of carloads of cement into the New England area every year. Thomaston I am told has plenty of material left to process and the only thing inhibiting that production being economical has been the lack of investment in modern processes that could give their operation a better competitive edge.
Last but not least, the dusting off of the idea of ownership of the plant by an indigenous group could possibly help a better financed operation with competition on Federal contracts.
With readily available rail, highway, and water shipping alternatives, Thomaston Cement is potentially well poised for a bright future with a little help of its friends.

The Dragon plant at one time was owned by the Penobscot Nation, purchased with funds from
the Maine Indian Land Claims settlement and they contracted with Cianbro to manage/operate
it. Don't know when or why they sold it.

Whoever told you they could cause Rockland blackouts is wrong-- Dragon is tapped off its own 115kv feed with built in protection to the system. They can be tripped off if they 'create trouble'. They likely run at night during off-peak so they can have a better rate for the high cost per kWH (standard offer went up 60% in 2 years). I suspect energy costs and their more and more enviornmental issues are to blame in this too.

Thats what I was told by the manager in charge of the loading area when I was still working for Bouchards. I hauled a lot of loads out of there for MPC and the only time I ever saw them crushing was at night.

Lane/Northeast Paving in Hermon has a cement transload, which with the loss of Dragon has been getting increasingly busy over the last few months. I could see them adding more tracks in the future.

New threat to Everett/Coke Works:

https://www.bldup.com/projects/everett-land-assemblage

I know Massachusetts thinks everyone can just put solar panels on their roofs and call it a day, but what about all the tank farms? All the other other industry that would be displaced? I find this hard to believe it would ever go through.

QC and Shnitzer don't appear to be in the red shaded area intended for redevelopment though.

It mentions the "waterfront" in the article and you can see the red area is along the top edge of the photo on the webpage.

I've highlighted the tracks in yellow. I wonder how accurate their map is. Seems like a haphazard collection of properties.