Andover complains about Pan Am train parking

eustis22 wrote:Yes but there's a third track for canning next to the old lawrence platform...can the locos next to the warehouses/stonemason shop.

Unfortunately a cat-and-mouse game when PAR freight main dispatcher controls Andover-north. The new #2 main is only used by Downeasters and freights until Andover DPW yard completes its pending relocation and the T can infill a new northbound station platform 2-3 years after completion of the rest of the DT project. Keolis is only going to find out retroactively about canning on a track their local schedules aren't currently using...even when this stuff gums up the overwall works enough with constipated movements that the dreaded "freight interference" starts dinging theirs and NNEPRA's OTP. Ditto the rash of recent cannings in Atkinson, where select Haverhill slots traditionally have gone to runaround to keep the platforms clear...but probably aren't right this moment because of Merrimack Bridge construction constraining regular ops. I haven't seen any reports of how full Lawrence has been this week, but if they've lapsed into chronic canning 5 miles north and 5 miles south it strongly hints to a yard that days ago filled out its storage and is now too short on space to block cars for departure.


I'm sure Keolis is livid about the neighborhood complaints about back-to-back 11-hour idlings in a thickly settled area because they're the customer service first-responders who have to field those calls. Billerica has probably been getting nastygrammes from them all week. But unfortunately they're forced into a limited amount of action from a purely after-the-fact reactive pose. PAR dispatch has more options than they do to sneak around on both the Andover and Atkinson sides of Lawrence when these #2 main tracks are in-service but not in 'prime-time' passenger service while adjacent construction projects are wrapping up. The fact that it makes little sense strictly for PAR ops to be canning here doesn't much play into it. They're doing it because they choose to, because their dispatch control lets them, because their landlord's only remedy is to chase after them reactively when it happens, and because if they shuffle the trains one step ahead of Keolis' complaints they have a well-established window of time where they can always get away with it.

deathtopumpkins wrote:Attempting to get the town to intervene is a fruitless waste of resources, because the town has no control over it.

They don't have control, but they do have a certain level of influence. What I've witnessed over the past 10-15 years is that this railroad will eventually, grudgingly, relocate idling trains to less-residential areas if they receive enough contact from municipal officials. Sometimes it can take months or even a year of steady contact, and so-called "bad press" is pretty much a requirement if you want this railroad to do anything. That's what I've been told by multiple town managers, city managers, and mayors. But eventually PAR gets tired of the certified letters from towns and the phone calls from newspapers and chooses to do the right thing (for the wrong reason).

Not saying what Pan Am is doing to the neighbors is right or wrong, this is a purely operations-based post.

Thinking through this operationally and how the infrastructure has changed you can realize why Andover is the new parking spot. Throw in that Lowell is stuffed with cars for Wynn (their traditional re-crew point) and their recent derailments they are probably hurting for space. Or if the train just gets short on the law but can at least get over the bridge - which has always been the case of when Lawrence was used. Keep in mind the "yard" at Lawrence isn't really a place they park trains, it just so happens to be in the area. The longest track there only holds about 40 cars. It is a yard for local service and pickups/set-offs. Not to park a train in.

Prior to any work, the current #1/former eastbound main was the Lawrence Running Track. It ran from Andover Street to Frye, down next to the ball field. Pan Am could pull any length train in here as it was about a mile and a half long. With JK now installed east of the former location of Frye and the interlocking at Andover Street extended west to accommodate new crossovers, you can really only fit about a 70-car train between JK and Andover Street on either the mainline or the yard. If you park the train in the yard between JK and Andover Street, you really tie up both the yard and the lead, blocking access for all the local switching jobs that work out of Lawrence and primarily go west through JK. You could park a train between Andover Street and Frost, but you only gain about 20 car lengths to 90 or so cars.

As we all know, Pan Am has a habit of running 100+ car trains over District 2, especially with CSX power. So now you rule out all those spots.

Now, they could still park the train at the old engine hold point near Shawsheen, where they used to when Frye existed, but then you would eliminate all of the double-track from Vale to Frost as you would be stretched through JK. Pulling the train down to Andover to clear JK only removes about 2 miles of the double track from Vale to JK, which as F-Line pointed out does not impact commuter service at all since Andover stating is only on track 2, and has very little impact on Downeaster service because they can still meet themselves or commuter trains between JK and Frost.

So there's the "why" as to what's happening in Andover - parking a train there puts it "out of the way" of other operations and it has enough room to fit.

That's nice. I'd say if the railroad doesn't have the necessary infrastructure to stash trains, then they either:

1- build it; or

2- run trains the length of which WILL fit in their infrastructure.

This is just another instance of this outfit showing themselves to be bad neighbors.

The new Andover parking lot is a good staging point to re-crew westbounds as all of the track to Ayer and Worcester is a dismal 10 MPH. In addition, trains will have to do set-offs and pick-ups in Lowell, or Graniteville as there is no yard in Lowell and Ayer is full of intermodal . Maybe with the railroad pulling out of the Maine Tiger program, they can concentrate on improving track conditions over this section so as to prevent the need to park trains in all of these places. Think back to the 1990s, in the SENE/NESE days, trains ran one crew Worcester to Portland with a power swap and work en route all over a much older track structure (100lb and 112lb 1940s era track over much of the line). The DHPO/PODH trains could easily make Fitchburg and they even could run Fitchburg to Mohawk with one crew. Sure, there was no Downeaster, however CPF-LJ east to Rigby is all pretty good track overall. And everyone thinks trains are slow today, wait until Pan Am has to manage the SEPO/POSE trains with their own power Worcester and east.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... toindex=-1

Wow. Canned and idling right across from the station platform. Now they're just asking for it.

To be fair, canning across from the station does get the power out of people's backyards and into a more commercial area. The photo caption also notes that the trailing units were shut down in this case. But the point stands, while this might be technically better it could easily come off as a slap in the face to the town.

CPF363 wrote:Maybe with the railroad pulling out of the Maine Tiger program, they can concentrate on improving track conditions over this section so as to prevent the need to park trains in all of these places.

Therein lies the rub. This railroad...spend money on its own property for self-betterment? They'll do it on a branchline when a customer is opening the checkbook to increase car loading weight, but they'll return a grant for capacity and schedule management on a mainline with complete disinterest. They could be easily addressing this by throwing down a set of controlled crossovers on the existing Lowell Branch DT to use part of that capacity for a canning spot/crew change in spitting distance of Bleachery...without blocking customer sidings or other meets that need to use part of that DT stretch. They could extend the mini Shawsheen St. passer east another mile to the Shawsheen bridge and/or LJ switch and have a crew change spot right at the foot of the Western Route and a major I-93 exit. They could do 10 other things of similar ilk for short money to square their crew change and layover needs between Lowell and Lawrence.

But unless MassDOT physically buys their property, does all engineering and permitting, and handles everything up to their institutional limit where handoff to PAR literally just involves dispatching the track gang to do their bidding...chances of them choosing to follow through are no more certain than the Northern ME grant. This is the same outfit that won't so much as add another controlled siding on the Pat Corridor to spare them NS's wrath for their own mainline cannings gumming up the IM schedules. And NS craps way bigger'n Keolis, NNEPRA, Town of Andover, et al. If the Pony's carrot-and-stick won't get Pan Am responding to capacity management needs on their own property, what chance to the public stakeholders have to convince them by waving a check that a little light home improvement between Bleachery and LJ is a win-win? Jeez...what chance does CSX have convincing them to get to work on improving those schedules ahead of the SEPO scale-up? Why work for reimbursement at all when they can just attach themselves like a barnacle to every new length of passenger track, milk it until the opposition gets too tough, then move on to another town and kick off a brand new whack-a-mole game with abutters and co-tenants over canning spots.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:They could be easily addressing this by throwing down a set of controlled crossovers on the existing Lowell Branch DT to use part of that capacity for a canning spot/crew change in spitting distance of Bleachery...without blocking customer sidings or other meets that need to use part of that DT stretch.

The Concord River Bridge (right over Lawrence Street) is their traditional point to re-crew. The problem is there are about 200 cars on the other track there for Wynn, so parking a train there blocks both tracks, no way to run an eastbound. The other traditional westbound re-crew point is North Chelmsford, but again, the second track has another 200 or so cars for Wynn. Because Wynn is a temporary traffic uptick they're trying to "make do" with what they've got.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:They could extend the mini Shawsheen St. passer east another mile to the Shawsheen bridge and/or LJ switch and have a crew change spot right at the foot of the Western Route and a major I-93 exit. They could do 10 other things of similar ilk for short money to square their crew change and layover needs between Lowell and Lawrence.

Only 70 cars from Shawsheen St. to Lowell Junction, and it sounds like the signal is moving a little further west with the NNEPRA project. There are too many crossings on the Lowell Branch single-track to make any use of it.

Rockingham Racer wrote:2- run trains the length of which WILL fit in their infrastructure.

They are running trains that fit their infrastructure. They traditionally have had a spot around here to park a large train and they still do, it just so happens that where they stop is in someone's back yard. Railroads today are built on efficiency. More tonnage per crew. That's why freight cars keep getting bigger. Running two 60-car trains to the same destination as opposed to one 120-car train flies in the face of business logic. Every siding/2nd main track on the Portland Division is big enough for a large train (except Rockingham with the crossing in the middle, but that's just over 100 - you can still make a rolling meet because the total length is near 200 cars). If the Haverhill bridge was in service, they would have even more options.

Unfortunately Lawrence was never built to be served by large trains - historically railroading was smaller. And the physical layout of the area is such that there isn't a whole lot more worthwhile room to extend any of the side tracks on either end - you'd only pick up about 10 car lengths at huge expense.

isn;t there a mile or so of the old M&L north of the yard?

eustis22 wrote:isn;t there a mile or so of the old M&L north of the yard?

There's crossings there, too. Canal St. and South Broadway and Water St., then Essex St. That's all in about the first mile.

Trinnau wrote:

Unfortunately Lawrence was never built to be served by large trains - historically railroading was smaller. And the physical layout of the area is such that there isn't a whole lot more worthwhile room to extend any of the side tracks on either end - you'd only pick up about 10 car lengths at huge expense.

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Seems to me there is room for four tracks under the So. Union St. overpass IIRC. If so, couldn't another runner be put in service, even at "huge expense"? It could be part of the capital expense budget [just kidding]. Otherwise, the trains need to stay small so the inadequate infrastructure can handle them. Of course, if the trains ran like they did in the B&M days, we wouldn't be needing 3 or 4 crews just to get E. Deerfield. That seems to be the underlying issue why this train is parked where it is in the first place.

Racer hit one of the nails on the head there. Track speeds on PAR/PAS where the MBTA doesn't maintain it or
NS helps out contribute allot to the lack of fluidity on the system. He's right...the B&M didn't need four or five crews
to get from Deerfield to Lawrence or Portland. We used to run Mechanicville to Lawrence with one crew!

D

Rockingham Racer wrote:Seems to me there is room for four tracks under the So. Union St. overpass IIRC. If so, couldn't another runner be put in service, even at "huge expense"? It could be part of the capital expense budget [just kidding]. Otherwise, the trains need to stay small so the inadequate infrastructure can handle them. Of course, if the trains ran like they did in the B&M days, we wouldn't be needing 3 or 4 crews just to get E. Deerfield. That seems to be the underlying issue why this train is parked where it is in the first place.

Which S. Union St? West or East of the yard (they both have 3 tracks now). Either way, the problem isn't the number of tracks, it's the length. I think the point you're missing is that the infrastructure is adequate - just not where the neighbors want it to be adequate. No doubt getting a train over the road would ease that. Pan Am has done Worcester to Portland and Deerfield to Portland with one crew in the last few years, but their plan isn't to do that - just a happy coincidence. Pan Am shoots for 2 crews with work between terminals, but their power state, dodging passenger trains and sometimes just getting the train out of terminal late continually conspire against them.

I forgot about the two So. Union St. overpasses. I'm referring to the one on the west end, where the engine house used to be. Can a new runner be laid there between I-495 and Andover St.?

As to referencing "inadequate infrastructure", I mentioned that quite clearly.

I guess my question is when the big boys recognize and are willing to pay for capacity improvements and maintenance--and that's what we're talking about here--that cost them BILLIONS each year, why isn't little Pan Am willing to do the same? Sounds to me much like the McGinnis era on the New Haven and B&M, and it was known as milking the railroad. Seems pretty obvious that Pan Am is not interested in running a quality operation AND making money at the same time. They have been willing, though, to improve the plant on someone else's dime, so they must see a value in improving infrastructure.

Trinnau, I like your posts; they are reasoned, informative and logical. I don't know if you work for PAR or not, but to defend a shoddy operation like this one might be pushing the envelope. I hope for better days for this railroad.

What about the stub of the old Lawrence & Lowell? down in the industrial park?