Activity on the Mountain Branch (Portland to Westbrook)

festis is right. As one Sappi employee explained to me, the type of paper printed in Westbrrok is, "like printing $100 bills". It's some type of paper used in shaping and moulding. The R&D center is still open, but he paper is the mainstay of the plant.

What happened to my Portland Press Herald post about the wood pellet traffic that may materialize on the branch, destined for Europe ? They are talking about reopening the line quite a ways beyond Westbrook, to a proposed pellet plant, and Europe is demanding that rail be utilized for environmental reasons, beautiful ! The pellets will move to the docks in Portland and travel via ship from there. I'll try to find the article again.

I tried to find your link but I can't seem to locate it; however, the wood pellet discussion has been taking place in the Reactivating the Mountain Division thread.

festis wrote:

CN9634 wrote:SAPPI @ Westbrook is R&D mostly.

couldn't be more wrong on that one...Westbrook Mill is a solid profit center for Sappi.

Never said they didn't make product there.

Oh and I learned this from talking to a SAPPI chemical engineer.

Back to your regularly scheduled topic.

CN9634 wrote:

festis wrote:

CN9634 wrote:SAPPI @ Westbrook is R&D mostly.

couldn't be more wrong on that one...Westbrook Mill is a solid profit center for Sappi.

Never said they didn't make product there.

Oh and I learned this from talking to a SAPPI chemical engineer.

Back to your regularly scheduled topic.

no, you didn't, you said it was mostly R&D, which it is not. 300+ manufacturing personnel, way less than that employed on the R&D side

Oh, and I learned this from a SAPPI Chem E. as well...I see him in the mirror every morning.

And it is not really off topic at all...fact of the matter is that there is plenty more business available to Pan Am on the Westbrook site/Mountain division. Without getting into the details, the 8-10 inbound cars per month could be 50-60 cars per month, were the stars to align perfectly. Perhaps I should have said that more explicitly in my original post....there is significant potential volume on the branch.

Well then I apologize. I was under the impression otherwise for ole SD Warren. Thank you for the clarification.

As for traffic increases, you suggest just an increase in the inbound cars per month, but nothing out. Is there anything that could go out by rail?

"Europe is demanding that rail be utilized for environmental reasons" - Im currently in Europe. Germany to be exact, I have been here for several years working for the DOD. Amost all of the rails over here have electrical lines stung up over them. I see German frieght trains and passanger trains every day and they are for the most part electric. Like the one in my pic. There isnt many places in Germany that dont have these electric lines above the rails.

http://photos.greatrails.net/showpic/?p ... &key=jason

CN9634 wrote:Well then I apologize. I was under the impression otherwise for ole SD Warren. Thank you for the clarification.

As for traffic increases, you suggest just an increase in the inbound cars per month, but nothing out. Is there anything that could go out by rail?

mostly export. domestic business mostly LTL volumes. lots of containers go out by truck to port in Montreal and New Jersey. Doubt PAR could service in a way that would meet strict container vessel cutoffs.

Some export containers have gone up to the SLR intermodal terminal in Auburn for "land bridge" to west coast ports. more expensive than an east coast ship, but can take a week off transit time into the Far East.

There is, or at least used to be a very large (hundreds of cars per year) move of paper ex Sappi at Westbrook to a point in Eastern, PA, I think it was Chapman or Lancaster, where the paper was re-cut into certain sizes, I think it was referred to as a conversion or slitting operation. Guilford would take a whack at this business every once in a while but it never lasted long due to service issues, as I think the plant demanded a certain transit time that Guilford was never able to live up to. It also required a low rail rate to compete with truck, so Guilford was never really that interested in making it work. Post Conrail, the destination became an NS point and now the service would be even worse as cars would have to go through Deerfield, Mohawk, Binghamton, Enola, etc. Again, not sure if this is still somewhere they ship to, but it was not too long ago.

JB283 wrote:"Europe is demanding that rail be utilized for environmental reasons" - Im currently in Europe. Germany to be exact, I have been here for several years working for the DOD. Amost all of the rails over here have electrical lines stung up over them. I see German frieght trains and passanger trains every day and they are for the most part electric. Like the one in my pic. There isnt many places in Germany that dont have these electric lines above the rails.

http://photos.greatrails.net/showpic/?p ... &key=jason

Germany exposing the myth of green energy. Electric powered "coal" trains. That's good!

Ha! Yea, now that i think about it! But in other ways these people are very enviomental over here. Not all of them, but most of them.

toolmaker wrote:

JB283 wrote:"Europe is demanding that rail be utilized for environmental reasons" - Im currently in Europe. Germany to be exact, I have been here for several years working for the DOD. Amost all of the rails over here have electrical lines stung up over them. I see German frieght trains and passanger trains every day and they are for the most part electric. Like the one in my pic. There isnt many places in Germany that dont have these electric lines above the rails.

http://photos.greatrails.net/showpic/?p ... &key=jason

Germany exposing the myth of green energy. Electric powered "coal" trains. That's good!

I thought about this for a little...

Coal fired power in Germany is exceptionally rare.

On the other hand they do still use (and always will use) coal in metallurgical applications both inside Germany and for export (especially to Eastern Europe). I wouldn't be surprised in the least if that train was carrying metallurgical (not thermal) coal.

Can anyone speak to the condition of the Mountain Branch on this segment?

Obviously PAR is doing enough to keep it open and operational. Does it receive any regular trackwork at all?

What conditions are the ties in (especially past the Portland Transportation Center)?

Based on my casual non-expert observations, the condition appears pretty similar to what you'd see in their other District 1 branches, e.g., not great, but adequate for the occasional 10 MPH (or less) movement. The Frost Street crossing in Portland recently received some much-needed repairs to the roadway surface, and the Congress Street crossing is in pretty good shape, having gotten some work a few years ago. I haven't been over the Rand Road crossing lately but it was bad the last time I did. The crossings in Westbrook are all in pretty rough shape as well.

I've recently seen some red LW boxcars with a little blue Sappi logo on the side, often on SEPO. Are these headed to Westbrook?