Ayer to become Major Classification Point

I can't see Ayer handling much of what was done at Rigby on top of it's existing work. Mayeb if it's spread across Ayer, LAwrence, Lowell, Waterville, and a few other places... but that just reeks of inefficiency, confusion, misroutings, double-handling, etc. on a gross scale.

My money is on, they'll try it for a few months and then realize it is costing them twice as much and taking twice as long to move the same cars twice as far to the wrong place and back again while 2 other trains wait their turn into the yard where too many switch crews are too busy doing too much mucking about in the same too-small yard... and then life will return to normal. The only alternatives I could see to this would involve additional work at E. Deerfield, Waterville, Danville, NMJ, etc.

I suppose you take take the work of a big yard and spread a small amount each to 10 other small yards and make it work...but there still comes a saturation point where it's taking too many crews too long with too many engines to do the same work.

My guess is that a lot of the Westbound blocking (i.e. Danville, CSXT, NS, Lawrence, East Deerfield, etc) that has historically been done at Rigby will now be done at the origin point of such trains as RUED, WAED and NMED. Eastbound blocking on the other hand will be done mainly at East Deerfield and to a lesser degree at Ayer and Lawrence. The biggest monkey wrench thrown into this plan in my opinion is integrating cars from CSXT at Barbers into the mix, but again, there is some room at Ayer, so this likley wouldn't be a huge problem. As long as the 3 daily Westbounds coming into Rigby don't need to get consolidated into 2 Westbounds West of Rigby, which was the case for a long time, then it sounds do-able to me. Sounds like more, but shorter trains on D-2, probably saddled with more switching and drop-offs along the way.

I think some one posted an observation regarding the necessity of having the cooperation of CSX to block cars at Selkirk to make this change work. I think this was tried many years ago with little success. Maybe the decrease in traffic from PAR is a factor (as a result of mill closings, etc) to allow it to work now?

I know that some of you folks are tickled with the possibility of increased activity in your areas as a result of this change, but, aside from my selfish reasons for Rigby to stay open (grow :-) , I think it's too bad to loose another significant railroad facility. It really is a classic yard, even now with many of the structures, facilities and operations having been removed over the past 10 or fifteen years.

c
man, i have to learn to type. And spell!

Prior to the CSXT takeover of Conrail, Selkirk yard I believe made blocks for Portland, Lawrence, Nashua and Ayer/Fitchburgh. SENE was almost always a solid Maine train, but I'm almost certain that there was never any blocking for beyond Portland, as in everything for the mills had to be switched at Rigby. Freight for the B&M side still goes through Deerfield today and is thus switched there, but unless CSXT is willing to make blocks for Waterville, Rileys, NMJCT, etc, freight moving over Barbers on Q-426 will need to be switched out at Ayer to be picked up by the various Eastbounds heading to Maine.

It would be very unfortunate to see Rigby go the way of so many other famous rail facilities in New England. I say this not only as a rail enthusiast, but also as a Mainer who wants to see more decent-paying blue-collar jobs in this state, not less.

The downsizing of Rigby

Oh? Can you elaborate?

WHAT?? Rigby CLOSE?? That yard is huge compared to Ayer!! Why don't they close Deerfield, too?? This is silly... How would they service Maine? Through Waterville?

I dunno... we have no say, sure, but I think it's silly to get rid of an infastructure like that...

JD

I don't want to see Rigby go any more than the rest of you, but if they're building solid Rileys/Rumford, Waterville and N Maine Jct trains right at Deerfield, then as long as they can integrate Q-426 into the mix at Ayer, there really isn't a big need any more for Rigby; especially since they seem to be doing the WB classifications right at Rileys, Waterville and N Maine Jct. When they were running alot of trains to Portland right from Selkirk/Rott Jct and Mechanicville, then Portland was a neccessity, but as long as Deerfield is up and running, then it's just not needed for a lot of train building. Even so, I still see there being a pretty good sized local yard for all the Portland area industries.

"I dunno... we have no say, sure, but I think it's silly to get rid of an infastructure like that... "

And once it's gone it's gone, if they it to some developer to build an old folks home or luxury condos or another mall, it's just one more reason to keep the maine paper and lumber industries from recovering, one more reason for jobs to leave the state, and one more reason why Guilford might get shut out if more rail freight were to ever start moving to/from Maine; one more reason for potential employers to look elsewhere, and one more thing to write off from the tax books. (oh sure, whatever is built there would pay taxes as well... but railroad yards also CONSUME few (if any) tax dollars, while residential developments- especially additional devlopments in already-urbanized areas- generally chew up more of the budget than they pay out)

FWIW, railroads don't make money operating yards. They're expensive to maintain (all those tracks and switches) are labor intensive, and actually increase transit times rather than decrease them. The dwell times, the time between a car entering a yard and leaving, at Selkirk, for example, are a constant problem for CSX. Considering the scale of the Pan Am operation, they probably shouldn't be doing any reclassifying anywhere between Waterville and East Deerfield. Rigby should simply be a local yard for Portland area and the Brunswick Branch and Maine Eastern connection. However if past history is any indication, it will probably survive in some form.

Ironically, ever since Syd Culliford was removed from the Trans VP position several months back, and the new guy, Ed Motte was brought in, service has improved quite a bit. Maybe they needed some fresh new blood to see that Rigby was just another spot for delays to take place? I also think they are getting trains over the road a bit quicker, which in some way may have made it more sensible to have less stops along the way. I also remember there being some labor issues at Portland - who knows how that could have played into things? The bottom line is that a regional operation like PAR just doesn't need to have that many big yards and right now it looks like Deerfield will be the focal point of the railroad.

cpf354 wrote:FWIW, railroads don't make money operating yards. They're expensive to maintain (all those tracks and switches) are labor intensive, and actually increase transit times rather than decrease them. The dwell times, the time between a car entering a yard and leaving, at Selkirk, for example, are a constant problem for CSX. Considering the scale of the Pan Am operation, they probably shouldn't be doing any reclassifying anywhere between Waterville and East Deerfield. Rigby should simply be a local yard for Portland area and the Brunswick Branch and Maine Eastern connection. However if past history is any indication, it will probably survive in some form.

So why is it large yards such as Selkirk exist? I agree it costs money to run these large yards but It is money well spent. A railroad such as PAR should be using Portland in my opinion just because of the extra capacity. Whats the point of having Lawrence as a yard? I believe that shutting down Rigby may put stress on PAR's already stressed infrustructure. If you think trains are getting out faster then perhaps they are, but with a District-1 that has a lot of 10 and 25 MPH speed limits, it can take forever for a train to traverse the system. All we can do is watch and find out.

There IS a need for large yards like Selkirk, just not one every couple hundred of miles. Deerfield and Waterville provide all the capacity that PAR currently needs.

Selkirk exists because CSXT moves far more traffic through the region than Pan Am does into Maine. Comparing the traffic levels on the old NYC in NY State and the old B&M/MEC is like comparing I-95 to a two-lane rural highway.