Breaking News: Maine considers hostile takeover of PAR lines

Alex, the longer Guilford continues, the more likely you are to see all rail traffic dry up and go away forever.

This comes from someone that used to railfan the Guilford D&H as a young pup.

Guilford going away will help the New England economy. It will take Fink's death, whenever it happens years from now, for that to happen.

Dave Becker

PeakVT wrote:I'll join the "warning shot" chorus as ME is trying to gain control of more than a branch line, which would make for a much bigger legal battle.

"" I do not think PanAm is going any where soon as long as the Maine DOTsays they have improved over the last two plus years. Is this an election year in Maine for state officers?

why wont NS just buy guilford, for gods sake. they suck so bad, we need someone to come and and give new england a rail boost. with the gas prices the way they are, i think its going to increase.

SLA already goes east/west through Maine and New Hampshire and MMA is another outlet for Maine shippers. Maybe one of them would want to expand their reach in Maine and knock off PanAM.

As someone mentioned

IF the State did take action and take over the line, they wouldn't spend money on engines, cars, ect. They would resell it for it "value". I'm sure someone would pick it up, a Railroad no doubt. If this were to happen I believe it WOULD cripple Guilford. Firstly it would remove Waterville from Guilford. The railroad's key repair facility would be gone and things would fall apart fast. Secondly Norfolk Southern has a large grip on the west end and Ayer. And lastly, Guilford would become a bridge line but if the railroad were out of the State, the traffic could be diverted over the SLR. Basically all the revenue in Maine would be gone to either the SLR or MMA. So Guilford would deminish quite quickly.

But I doubt this will happen as I've said before.

The article makes it very clear that the state would not be the operator of the railroad. The state would buy the property from Pan Am, and then it would either sell it to another railroad company, or lease it to another railroad company (for example, think Maine Eastern and the state-owned Rockland Branch).

Those of you who think no other railroad companies would be interested in these lines need only look at the former BAR and CDAC railroads, which were far more hopeless and had far fewer customers than Pan Am's lines in Maine. And yet the old BAR and CDAC are now in the very capable hands of Ed Burkhardt. The MEC, and the Maine section of the B&M, would be a far less risky venture, in my opinion. There is no doubt in my mind that several companies would be interested.

RE the viability of alternative routing... if you consider only mileage, the SLR/CN route between Portland/Danville and Detroit/Chicago is virtually the same: call it 850m (Detroit) and 1150m (Chicago). So, from this standpoint, the old BM route is not so indispensable for midwest/west coast traffic. (Remember that this was the Mountain sub's reason for existence.) Now, for east/south traffic routed over Selkirk, BM route mileage from Danville to Selkirk via Rott Jct is, say, 350 miles. An SLR route to Selkirk via Groveton, Wells River, WRJ, Palmer is 450 miles. Now THAT is a disadvantage... but not necessarily a deal killer if (a) you consider that it would be incremental business for the participating roads and priced accordingly, and (b) wacky routings are nothing new... consider all the MEC-served mills that shipped product east to 'Keag for movement west. Shippers often truck over great distances for alternative routings (soda ash in WY is TRUCKED nearly 200 miles from UP-served mines to a BNSF line).

Anyway - this is all plain fantasy - the state is smoking crack and Fink(s) & co. will quit when they're good and ready.

Or it could go CSX Selkirk to Montreal CN to SLR. I think the current condition of SLR track (Probably the best in the state) would be the real reason why that would be a benefit

With Guilford selling its Cambridge properties for what... 175 MILLION, getting out of the airline industry and having Mellon's deep pockets, I have no doubt in my mind Guilford could upgrade the entire route to modern standards (CWR, signals, computers, ect ect)

The service complaints are for the most part about service at the customer's siding, not the transit times or routes. If I'm not mistaken, shippers can specify a routing, and clearly the customers in Maine have two options, SLR and MM&A. Maine is helping to fund improvements at Danville Jct, so that will help move traffic between ST and SLR, for example. MM&A itself admits it's operating at less than capacity, and could handle more traffic. The problem with Pan Am it seems is getting the cars the last mile!

cpf354 wrote:The service complaints are for the most part about service at the customer's siding, not the transit times or routes. If I'm not mistaken, shippers can specify a routing, and clearly the customers in Maine have two options, SLR and MM&A. Maine is helping to fund improvements at Danville Jct, so that will help move traffic between ST and SLR, for example. MM&A itself admits it's operating at less than capacity, and could handle more traffic. The problem with Pan Am it seems is getting the cars the last mile!

The problem with Pan Am is getting them to move cars ONE mile.

Ok, im baffled by all of this, what is going on? is a single ine going to be taken over, or the entire system? and is so, by who?

Just the routes in the State of Maine, if it happens.

News story with video:

http://tinyurl.com/2vkm39

hopefully this happens. i can see this happening, fix'd, i read the article through, they should do it in MA too, maybe the entire system.