Bucksport Branch activity & news

There's lots of loads going in just not sure if any are coming out. There are almost 40 cars of logs and many cars of chemicals in McAdam yard as I type this destined for the Woodland mill.

carchecker wrote:There's lots of loads going in just not sure if any are coming out. There are almost 40 cars of logs and many cars of chemicals in McAdam yard as I type this destined for the Woodland mill.

Has Woodland always received a portion of their logs by rail?

The 6 boxcars have been sitting in the yard. The day before they left some of the cars had open doors. I don't think they loaded 6 cars overnight. All the activity at the old OSB mill are the workers building the natural gas pipeline to the Woodland mill. They use the OSB as a parking lot as the pipeline is off in the woods near the old Track Road ( the old line to Princeton ). The OSB supposedly is going to be a plant to make chemicals for the pulp mill and wood storage.

The log cars coming into Woodland is a fairly new project. Since NBSR has taken over the Northerm Maine Railroad (The old MMA ) trackage there has been 25 to 30 log cars a week coming to woodland.

RRBUFF wrote:The log cars coming into Woodland is a fairly new project. Since NBSR has taken over the Northerm Maine Railroad (The old MMA ) trackage there has been 25 to 30 log cars a week coming to woodland.

Where are they coming from?

Some of the logs are being loaded north of Ashland on the old BAR- I saw a train of empty
log racks northbound at Squa Pan about a month ago. Last Monday the southbound MNRR
was sitting north of the route 11 crossing at Squa Pan about 11:30 AM with two NBS GP38's
and a short string of woodchip cars but no log racks.

I know this is starting to get off topic, but any figures on what if any traffic the Northern Maine RR is bringing down to the PAS at Keag from the county?

Weeks late but back on topic......The actual number of layoffs totalled 40-50. Quite a few took buyouts or early retirement. While that still sucks, its nowhere near the original estimates. Even some of these will possibly be called back. The machine that was cut out of the equation was old #2. Last I heard, they were making packets(sugar, salt, etc....) on that equipment.

The bigger surprise to me was that a tie train showed up down on the Branch 2-3 weeks back. It totalled nearly 15 gondolas filled to the tops with new ties. Power was the 379 throughout the project. Not bad! While the ties are all well and good, the ROW still looks like crap. No tamping or ballast work has happened since. I doubt the speeds have been any higher than the old 10mph, but it beats 5mph!

Blog article from the BDN --> http://mattw.bangordailynews.com/2012/0 ... nue-in-q1/ <-- Verso says losses were up, paper demand down. Going to shutter a machine in Bucksport and lay off so employees. Pretty typical from the paper business right now.

From The Portland Press Herald:

The Portland Press Herald wrote:A train derailed in Bucksport tonight, but it wasn't carrying hazardous materials and no one was injured.

A dispatcher for Bucksport's Fire and Emergency Services Department said four cars on the train derailed about 8 p.m. along Route 15, also known as the River Road, near the Orrington town line. She said crews took equipment to deal with a spill of hazardous material, but learned that none of the cars on the train were carrying any potentially harmful material.

Read more at: http://www.pressherald.com/news/Train-d ... sport.html

Just going to post this. Supposedly two cars are in the river. Somewhere near here.

https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.667676,- ... 3&t=h&z=16

There's been at least 3 derailments in the past 10 years in these few miles.

The train was southbound heading towards Bucksport. Engines idiling and equipment/workers starting to pile up here.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=44.6 ... sz=18&z=18

Apparently more than the run of the mill wheels on the ground...BDN article --> http://bangordailynews.com/2012/05/25/n ... -on-board/ <-- says that 2 cars wound up in the river.

Bangor Daily News wrote:Initial reports indicate that four Pan-Am Railways train cars left the tracks, two of them winding up in the nearby Penobscot River, a Bucksport Public Safety dispatcher confirmed.

who owns all that sheetrock now? Insurance Co.?

"who owns all that sheetrock now? Insurance Co.?"

For all intents and purposes, PAR. Welcome to the wonderful and complicated world of freight claims