Railroad Forums 

  • Rumford Branch, RUPO / PORU

  • 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

 #1517189  by S1f3432
 
Not all paper is the same- mills produce custom lots for customers varying in weight, fiber mix, coatings, roll
width and size and so on. In an attempt to save costs by not having to change the machines over from one
grade of paper to another so often they started producing runs of specific grades and sending it to warehouses
from where it would be it would be sent to customers as needed. This is a similar idea to SafeHandling breaking
100 ton loads of chemicals into smaller lots and forwarding it as needed. Not sure who pays for the warehouse
storage and shipping- the customer may bear some of it if they have purchased the paper.
 #1517269  by CN9634
 
gokeefe wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:58 pm He's suggesting building a mill owned warehouse in order to reduce storage costs. This is not a new idea for Rumford and well worth considering.
Would you rather build a new warehouse at the mill in Rumford (not even sure where you'd have space for that) or build one further south or out of state where you can simply rail to your own warehouse?
 #1517277  by gokeefe
 
There have historically been warehouses on the mill property. There's a lot to be said for utilizing existing land and assets more efficiently. Few places could possibly be cheaper to build a new facility than land that is already owned and within the mill operation.
 #1517347  by 690
 
I believe the point being alluded to is that there is very little room at Rumford to build a new warehouse, mill owned land or not.
 #1517361  by gokeefe
 
Absolutely true. Question is what do they want to do going forward. Lots of big changes underway.
 #1517544  by highrail
 
I got a chance to visit the Rumford line from Leeds Junction north to Rumford for the first time yesterday. I got lucky :) I counted about 46 cars coming off the Rumford line. The speed restriction is painful to watch... The yard was pretty full at Rumford, with the switcher running, but no crew to be seen, so pretty quiet.

Steve
Attachments:
leeds2-5120.jpg
leeds2-5120.jpg (808.12 KiB) Viewed 1959 times
leeds1-5129.jpg
leeds1-5129.jpg (823.57 KiB) Viewed 1959 times
 #1517549  by gokeefe
 
Are the signals still in service? Seems like they are if they haven't been turned sideways or is that covered just through a Bulletin Order?
 #1517575  by KSmitty
 
Signals have been OOS for several years, since a car ran over the bungalow at the crossing.

New signals supposedly coming when they do their next massive track project. All part of the plan to upgrade and interlock Leeds, add 2000' of siding at New Gloucester (a stupid place to put, they really should go from Roy-west another 2000'...) and do some pretty serious rail replacement east of 185.
 #1517646  by newpylong
 
gokeefe wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 12:05 pm Are the signals still in service? Seems like they are if they haven't been turned sideways or is that covered just through a Bulletin Order?
They can just be black unless there is another signal next to them that would be confused, then they must be turned sideways or bagged.
 #1518513  by Fritz
 
Hello,
My family and I recently passed through Rumford. On both days (late afternoon on a Saturday and early morning on a Sunday), we noted that there was a train working the yard. I would assume that both were the local Rumford switcher.

Does anyone know if how many days per week the local/switcher works and is there only one shift per day? I read some of the earlier posts, and it sounds like this work is supposed to transfer from ST to Watco.

Also I am curious, what are the "road operations" on the Rumford Branch? And is there another local/switcher that works the Jay paper mill?

Thanks for any help answering these questions.
Best,
Fritz
 #1518531  by KSmitty
 
I believe Rumford has RU-1 and RU-2, plus an RU-R so two switch crews and a relief that covers weekends and what have you.
Jay has RI-1, plus a couple of road crews.
Road jobs are PORU-RUPO from Rigby (PO) to Rumford (RU) and vice versa. Operate 7 days/week. Morning departures railroad west (Compass south-east) from Jay to Leeds and east from Rigby to Leeds. They usually meet in Leeds or Lewiston mid-day and return to home terminal.
The Jay-Rumford section is covered by one crew that runs Jay-Rumford-Jay but is on duty in the evenings. In June/July you can seem them in daylight on a good day, this time of year the move is pretty much nocturnal.

On the branch, PORU works the chicken feed elevator at North Leeds as needed. Both PORU and RUPO work Rileys (Jay) as needed.

This will all change sometime after 9/1 as Watco is set to take over switching operations at Rumford. They currently have crews in class, and they should be ready sometime early next month.
 #1518593  by R&PEditor
 
This will all change sometime after 9/1 as Watco is set to take over switching operations at Rumford. They currently have crews in class, and they should be ready sometime early next month.
Thanks for spelling all that out! Any idea why the switching is going to WATCO?
 #1518628  by Hux
 
R&PEditor wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 9:55 am
This will all change sometime after 9/1 as Watco is set to take over switching operations at Rumford. They currently have crews in class, and they should be ready sometime early next month.
Thanks for spelling all that out! Any idea why the switching is going to WATCO?
$$$ and control
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