The only pickup PAR is likely to score is haulage of CSX's Everett Terminal customers. Not a
takeover...just mercenary haulage. CSX can potentially make more money out of its Everett rights than they do right now simply by getting off the
Plate B -restricted Grand Junction and throwing some bigger-size refrigerator cars onto
PAR's Plate E routing. It'll also let them save considerable money on ops, since post- Beacon Park closure B721 literally does nothing except run nonstop from Framingham to Everett every day and will cease its once-weekly dropoffs at Houghton Chemical in Allston in 6 months when HC's freight contract is formally retired. If PAR is punctual enough at Barbers CSX can tack handoffs of the NEPC produce onto the B722 westbound that runs from Framingham to the N. Grafton & Worcester interchanges, and keep a perpetual business toehold at the terminal with any future sign-on potential that may entail. They'd keep rights to take the job back in-house if they're somehow dissatisfied with PAR's haulage, but would save a bundle not needing to run it themselves.
On PAR's side it's obviously free money for tacking a piddling few extra cars onto a BO-# job they're already running to Everett every single day...so their side of the bargain is self-evident.
There aren't any other CSX locals that PAR can feasibly reach, so that's it. B724 still does enough biz on the Fitchburg Sec. to sustain a daily schedule to Northborough-Clinton-Sterling. And that branch hitting established industrial parks situated right around the Mass Pike, I-495, and I-290 is a competitive flank they'd want to keep protected so PAR or P&W can't march in from Clinton Jct. and open up tit-for-tat direct competition to Westborough Transflo on the same stretch of MetroWest highways. Clinton Jct. is always going to be paper-barriered even if they don't really give a crap about developing any new biz at all those unused sidings between Framingham and Clinton, because their continued presence on the branch enforces a de facto perimeter fence around competition for the primary MetroWest yards on the B&A. It's only the last 6 miles of active track past Bestway Lumber in Sterling (near historic ex- Pratt's Jct.) to end of the line in Leominster that they're eager to erase from existence. There's only 1 on-line customer left in Leominster, and hardly any setoffs still being done in the downtown yard. City of Leominster is extremely hostile and endlessly feuding with them. And the 2 days a week they run past Bestway they have to outlaw at Clinton Jct. for HoS and come back the next day to complete the Framingham return. They're almost certainly sticking needles in a Teknor Apex voodoo doll hoping that customer just goes away so they can proceed with embargoing everything north of Bestway and put it on countdown to abandonment. B724 actually pockets a small but tidy profit if it can guarantee a round trip within HoS all 5 weekdays instead of just 3.
