Railroad Forums 

  • Madison Branch

  • Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.
Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.

Moderator: MEC407

 #1219093  by PT1101
 
I received a phone call from what I consider a very reliable source. He wanted to let me know that Pan Am was in the process of removing the rails at the plant. Apparently the area will be paved so that trucks will be able to handle the traffic. While I haven't seen it for myself to confirm, I'd say the end is near for the branch.
 #1219166  by Mikejf
 
Last Train was almost a week ago. The end is now.
 #1219187  by 690
 
Last train was this morning.
 #1219265  by fogg1703
 
KSmitty wrote:So truck to Ayer and then IM out of there or truck all the way?
Im sure PAR would hope for an IM load out of Ayer, however CSX now has another chance at some Maine paper IM at Worcester. Talking about 20-30 truckloads/week maybe. Makes a good case for IM out of Waterville however.
 #1219286  by CN9634
 
The original plan was intermodal out of Waterville who knows now..
 #1219436  by CPF363
 
Did the Madison mill ever receive slurry cars, or has it always been trucked in?
 #1219490  by 690
 
Not recently, if ever. Only cars were boxcars, and an occasional load of steel.
 #1220832  by newpylong
 
The information on the branch is correct (I got it confirmed today), and it is embargoed. Customer is trucking product to warehouse in Waterville to transfer to rail.
 #1220855  by KSmitty
 
newpylong wrote:The information on the branch is correct (I got it confirmed today), and it is embargoed. Customer is trucking product to warehouse in Waterville to transfer to rail.
Thanks for the update!
 #1220886  by newpylong
 
I will add customer is paying more to do this obviously - and customers (possible customers) beyond the mill aren't happy about this since the line was just re-activated beyond Madison.

From the PAR side, I think it might be hard to justify rebuilding 20 miles for what they are doing now for business, but that business is so small because the track is so bad they derail nearly daily. Mill wants to do 20 cars/day, doing less than 10 now.
Last edited by newpylong on Fri Oct 11, 2013 8:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
 #1220963  by fogg1703
 
On one hand PAR has not been shy to seek outside money to rehab trackage, however if the mill is not willing to commit to a certain number of cars then that's a large rehab project for not a lot of gain. It appears they are not interested in having close rail access for their pit in Embden and Cousineau isn't utilizing rail like they stated they were going to after the grant award, so with the mill being the only customer is it worth it? In my mind rail right now seems to be a leverage tool against trucking. Faster speeds aren't keeping the mill from shipping 20 cars/day.

With an added cost and hassle of transload, I see 100% trucking to destination in the future here.
 #1220966  by fogg1703
 
Another question. What makes this scenario different than the talked about service renewal to Bennington Paper in NH? Here we have a current customer shipping 10 cars/day on 20 miles of poor track, while at Bennington Paper miles of track must be rebuilt in order to serve an even smaller mill with no guarantee of car volumes. At least Madison has one or two potential customers already there. Might make a case for state funds if the mill squawked loud enough about loss of competitive advantage with losing rail.
 #1221131  by fogg1703
 
newpylong wrote:Different scenario because PAR wanted the M&B gone.
Spite is a dangerous business decision.
 #1221144  by newpylong
 
Well, that's been their core business model for 30 years and they're still around. More importantly, what is a piss ant railroad like the M&B going to do to them, even if the owner is a politician? PAR would love to pull out of NH entirely outside of the freight main.