Railroad Forums 

  • Maine Northern Railway (ex-MMA lines operated by EMR/NBSR)

  • Discussion of present-day CM&Q operations, as well as discussion of predecessors Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA) and Bangor & Aroostook Railroad (BAR).
Discussion of present-day CM&Q operations, as well as discussion of predecessors Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA) and Bangor & Aroostook Railroad (BAR).

Moderator: MEC407

 #1386189  by Cosakita18
 
fogg1703 wrote:I'd say it's the one "downtown" as the Maysville Rd silo facility regularly receives cars and the BDN article states the rehab will restore rail service to MPG. I haven't seen anything on the MPG siding adjacent to the yard in town in years (tank car) and an aerial of the area shows the siding in rough shape.

I''m a Presque Isle native and I can confirm that spur is essentially unusable. They still get railcar deliveries but they have to park the cars in the yard and run hoses across the parking lot to load / unload the cars.z

I don't know if MPG will be INCREASING their use of rail, but the Presque Isle branch seems to be getting more traffic as of late.
 #1391355  by fogg1703
 
fromway wrote:Talked today with someone from Huber in Easton. They are shipping 70-80 trailer loads a day and would love to ship by rail if they were confident in the service. Would the sale of PAS help make service better?
70-80 trailer loads a day? Maybe a 70-80 loads a week. I believe Mr CN 9364 from 6/22/16 sums up the latest deveolpments:
CN9634 wrote:Huber out of Easton has elected to ship via MNR-CMQ-VRS-NECR-CSX to reach their Westford, MA facility rather than by way of ST. Should be a noticeable increase in boxcar traffic
I believe Huber has always had an issue with car hire as they require double door boxes which BAR kept a ready supply of. When MMA was trying to provide service their smaller double door fleet split time with Tafisa ( a MUCH bigger account) therefore Huber shifted to trucks amid housing downturns and car availability.

Any change in railroad landscape down in Mass would have little impact on a faster PAR D1 routing of 24-36 hours NMJ-Rigby. The keep-away routing to Westfield is proof positive of that.
 #1391567  by bigfreight
 
One of my customers buys 35 to 40 loads a week out of Easton that are shipping by truck plus railcar's to their distribution center. So I do not doubt that they do 70 to 80 trucks a day in peak construction season . I work out of some other Huber locations in Va, Ga and OK and they do a lot of trucks. I would say they average between 50 to 100 trucks a day all year around from those points.
 #1391700  by fogg1703
 
While I don't doubt the 40 loads/week to a distributor, the numbers don't seem to equal upwards of 80 loads a day from the plant. The latest production numbers I found in a 2008 clean air emission filing with the State of Maine was 435 tons/day. Follow along if you can. At 60 lbs for a 4'x8' sheet (per Huber website of average weight of nominal thicknesses and ZipSystem vs Advantech) that equals an output of 14,500 4 X 8 sheets/day. A standard non overweight trailer carries a max of 48,000 lbs to keep under the 80,000 lbs load limit. With the average trailer load of 800 sheets to make weight that means 18 loads/day. Has Huber done a major plant upgrade after the housing crash to double or even triple production?
 #1391828  by CN9634
 
fogg1703 wrote:
fromway wrote:What is the conversion rate of truck load to railcar?
A 100 ton boxcar has a load limit of 200,000 lbs. A flatbed trailer holds 48,000 lbs. So roughly 4 truckloads to 1 Boxcar.
4 to 1 if it's a plate F or heavy (depending on density of the product), 3 to 1 if its a normal plate C
 #1392088  by Cosakita18
 
fromway wrote:Would the MNR be able to handle a switch every other day to handle the potential influx of business on the branch to the Easton plant?
I don't know if they have the crews to run the Presque Isle sub more than once a week but I'm sure there are customers along that branch that would love twice or thrice weekly service.
 #1392260  by ShortlinesUSA
 
Wow, is the service down to just once a week with MNR? I went up there shortly before the MMA sold the northern portion of the system to the State of Maine, and I want to say the MMA was operating out of Squa Pan to Presque Isle and Easton at least 2 days a week, if not 3. I am almost certain they worked Huber extensively on the trip out the branches that I followed.

Has business on the branches declined that much, or has MNR decided once a week is all that is economically justified? Are these branches still served by a job based in Squa Pan, or does the train originate elsewhere now?

Any info is greatly appreciated.
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