Brunswick Branch Activity

gokeefe wrote:

gokeefe wrote:Dan Comick also caught this move on November 1, 2013.

On the same day he also catches the return to Portland with an even more unusual appearance by the SLR which apparently was waiting at the diamond in Yarmouth. The speed of PAR on this stretch of track is quite remarkable. Looks like they may have been doing at least 40 MPH and perhaps even more than that (perhaps as much as 60MPH...which would be MAS for Class IV....seems unlikely but possible).

Brunswick Branch is Class III MAS 40 freight and even on Class IV track the MAS for Pan Am freight is only 40. The only place they go faster is 50 on Amtrak's Springfield (CR) line.

You've been watching too much 10: ) They look to be going in between 35 and 40 in the video.

newpylong wrote:You've been watching too much 10 : )

LOL that reminds me of the first few times I saw freights doing 40 on the Plaistow-Portland line, after years of seeing them do 25 or 10. I remember thinking to myself, "Holy hell, they are really booking it!"

Even 25 can look like 40 when you're accustomed to 10.

doublestack wrote:A little after 1:00pm today 3/11/14, two Pan Am units came through Freeport heading east hauling 20 cars, 3 covered hoppers plus 17 flats of steel for BIW via Maine Eastern.

Are those covered hoppers for cement or perlite? I think gray ones are "Dragons" and green or brown (ATSF/BNSF) are "Dicaperls," but I'm not 100% sure on that.
About 20 years ago, I used to see gray SLC (San Luis Central) cylindrical cars that I think carried perlite, but that was way back when the Flexi-Flo cement cars (some now under DPCX reporting marks) still had MDTX marks.

Rode from Portland to Brunswick today -- nice ride! ME 764 was working the yard in Brunswick with a lot of plate steel and some hoppers.

CN9634 wrote:PAR has positioned themselves perfectly here in that they could (If the planets lined up and they wanted to) reopen the line from Augusta to Brunswick, with some assitance from MaineDOT of course, which would be a much more preferred route for intermodal and crude oil. In fact, if someone such as say, CSX or NS took over PAR, I would imagine they would certainly reopen the line and use that as a primary route. The back road is good because it reaches more industrial centers, but really, you could abandon from Leeds Jct to Oakland, hell even to Waterville and just run the Rumford jobs to interchange with SLR and serve the mills. A few locals as well could replace the work of the road jobs. The only issue is sidings...you would have to put in a few big ones on the line between Augusta and Royal. Still, not a bad plan, especially if Amtrak is trying to get to Augusta.

I agree and think its nothing short of remarkable that PAR has as much of Maine Central's former main line track in operation as it does today. As a single project Royal Junction to Augusta was unwieldy and difficult to justify. Brunswick Station changed all of that and made the extension to Augusta (or Waterville) much less formidable.

Another good video from Chuck Marsters. This shows the Maine Eastern RR making a transfer of flats of steel from the Brunswick yard to BIW's Hastings plant a few miles away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWyNllHw ... y4LSuZAinQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Watchman318 wrote:

doublestack wrote:A little after 1:00pm today 3/11/14, two Pan Am units came through Freeport heading east hauling 20 cars, 3 covered hoppers plus 17 flats of steel for BIW via Maine Eastern.

Are those covered hoppers for cement or perlite? I think gray ones are "Dragons" and green or brown (ATSF/BNSF) are "Dicaperls," but I'm not 100% sure on that.
About 20 years ago, I used to see gray SLC (San Luis Central) cylindrical cars that I think carried perlite, but that was way back when the Flexi-Flo cement cars (some now under DPCX reporting marks) still had MDTX marks.

The covered hoppers are most likely perlite. Center-flo gravity hoppers are uncommon for the use in transporting cement.

doublestack wrote:Another good video from Chuck Marsters. This shows the Maine Eastern RR making a transfer of flats of steel from the Brunswick yard to BIW's Hastings plant a few miles away.

"Hardings" plant. I think it's named for the area, which was probably named for a family that settled there. (As in Warren G. Harding.)

The covered hoppers are most likely perlite. Center-flo gravity hoppers are uncommon for the use in transporting cement.

Okay, thanks. I forgot all the Dragon cars are pressurized hoppers. There are some gray PD3000 or PD3500 cars with NAHX marks that have been making the trips to Canada for awhile now.

I love it when I learn something without breaking anything in the course of learning.

Watchman318 wrote:"Hardings" plant. I think it's named for the area, which was probably named for a family that settled there. (As in Warren G. Harding.)

Yes, the plant name is in fact Hardings.

Nice video of DO-1 with 518 working the Brunswick area. Video by Dan Cormick
Enjoy, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpxPHcrk ... DgQLSS0hNg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

doublestack wrote:Nice video of DO-1 with 518 working the Brunswick area. Video by Dan Cormick
Enjoy, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpxPHcrk ... DgQLSS0hNg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks Peter. It was interesting seeing them go up past Cumberland Street with the perlite cars. The large amounts of steel being interchanged in Brunswick in the last several months has really been nice too. Hopefully the cement cars will start showing up again soon as well with the spring finally here.

drcrf93 wrote:Hopefully the cement cars will start showing up again soon as well with the spring finally here.

I know a couple of people who work at Dragon, and apparently railcars were loaded this past Sunday (04/13). Those might have been for the shuttle to the Rockland wharf, but it's a good sign. Kinda like the frogs I heard just the other night.

when was Deering jct-Brunswick single tracked?

Freeport to Brunswick was never double tracked as far as I can find from the reference material I have available.
CTC was installed in 1964 between Falmouth ( old milepost 6.20 at Lambert St. crossing ) and Sodom ( old mp 17.74 )
with the removal of the second main track between Falmouth and Freeport with the exception of two miles of
double track between Low Road and Sodom with a spring switch at each end.

Original CTC in Portland area was the construction of Tower X, along with the new Fore River bridge and the reconfiguration
of River Jct. ( old Tower 3 ), Mountain Jct. and Union Station Yard in 1955. Tower X assumed the functions of Tower 5 at
Brighton Ave. after the cessation of passenger service in 1960. In 1973 new Tower PT replaced the old armstrong Tower 1
and Tower 2 at opposite ends of Rigby Yard as well as the CTC previously controlled by Tower X.

Double track from Deering ended near the Freeport/Brunswick town line. Siding is still there, but I don't know when the double track was removed.