CENTRAL MAINE & QUEBEC RAILWAY (CMQ) — New Owner of MMA

Hopefully, Fortress will pick a good CEO to run the railroad that understands Irving and their needs. Irving has control of the freight potential of the new system. Hopefully that person will be fluent in French and English. Any ideas for a name for the system?

"Any ideas for a name for the system?"

The name? With apologies to Ozzie, how about Crazy Train, Inc? Tag line: Given one railroad sold the money-losing line and two went bankrupt trying to run it... with Fortress doing the same and expecting a different result, possibly their slogan should be "we define insanity".

"...but the new MM&A (CDAC, BAR, whichever) can proactively set internal interchange standards and invest in tankers that meet the updated regulations."

First of all, it won't be the MMA/successor that invests in the tank car modifications; that nut is held by the owners/leasing companies. And to my knowledge, if a particular crude is properly labeled and packaged, a railroad, as a common carrier, CANNOT set their own interchange standards. Rather, they must accept that of FRA/DOT/AAR, etc.

I still look for Irving to take over the route. Maybe Fortress is a front until things die down and then they sell it to Irving or Irving will run it for Fortress.

there is no 'new owner'. this is a stalking horse number. it's a process used to establish bid parameters. auction date has yet to be established. fortress 'may' be a bidder in the autction. successful? probably not in my opinion since the stalking horse number for the 'assets' doesn't reflect salvage. of interest to me however is the scarcity of folk who would participate as a stalking horse. fortress' exposure is 3.5% of its stalking horse bid. small money to establish an auction floor. ken patrick

CP should have bid to take back the line. Oil trains will start again sometime and why share the big revenue? Since CP sold the line east of St. Jean it's been a fly by night operation at best. The disaster in Lac Megantic could have been avoided in the first place.

Mike

Ken,

You missed the boat on this one. Go to page 1 and see MEC407's post (or just look at the first post of this thread).

The auction has already been held and the sale is being finalized.

New company name?? How about "Rail of the misfit Trains"!

How about...... " Rail of Tears "

mtuandrew wrote:I'd be interested to see if Fortress attempts to purchase some or all of the NBSR, Maine Northern, and EMRY. Seems like it would make sense to keep the rate division to a minimum, eliminate competition, force PAR to interchange with them, and tap into whatever business is keeping the Irving Lines afloat in Maine and New Brunswick.

I HIGHLY doubt Fortress makes a bid, and doubt even more a successful bid for any Irving property.
The business that is making MNR tick is fiber, lumber and ag business, in that order I believe. The fiber is key, with plans to run 400+ cars a week of round wood or chips (fiber) off the MNR. The destination for said fiber? Its solit, equally, between Woodland Pulp llc (an EMRY served mill) and Irving Pulp in Saint John. The source? Irving Woodlands. MNR/EMRY/NBSR is a major piece of Irvings production line. I doubt that anyone else can offer the service levels they want, simply because the railroad is making money selling service to other Irving properties. Its the type of internalized "lets do everything because we can do it better and cheaper" mentality that is rarely seen in todays "what can we contract out" world, but Irving's railroads are a'boomin...
If anything it willbe Irving that bids on the "Wherever & Whatever" railroad when Fortress fails, decides the money isnt good enogh, or Irving decides the Moosehead is no longer a political nightmare and has value as a pipeline again.

As for railroad name, I liked the "Canadian Atlantic" or CDAC, but realized after that CP holds the rights to that name...

They could potentially revive "Canadian American," last used in the Iron Road days. Iron Road used the word Railroad in the name; Fortress could perhaps use Railway or Rail System if they wanted or needed to make it slightly different.

There are other possibilities, such as Montreal & Aroostook, Quebec & New England, etc. I'm sure they'll come up with something and hopefully it'll have a nice ring to it.

gokeefe- i should have googled the auction. my thinking is clouded by the enormous liabilities. i can't believe anyone would get involved with the mountain of uncertainties. ok. now that we have a buyer what of these unsettled issues? they don't go away. ken patrick

KEN PATRICK wrote:gokeefe- i should have googled the auction. my thinking is clouded by the enormous liabilities. i can't believe anyone would get involved with the mountain of uncertainties. ok. now that we have a buyer what of these unsettled issues? they don't go away. ken patrick

Fortress bought assets not the MMA and its liabilities. MMA will probably continue to exist for many years but nothing will come of the settlements...

It is what it is.

Fortress sees something in the entire system that no one else was willing to keep together. While some traffic may return to the Moosehead (Chrysler, crude, lumber), in order to be successful a lot of outside the box thinking is needed. I think as KSmitty stated the Aroostook lines are successful because they are a conveyor belt for their owner. No need for Fortress to nose in on that. So the other alternative is to think west. Could the line dormant CSX from Adirondack Jct to Beauharnois QC be purchased and re-activated? MMA was very interested back in 2007 about it. Are they willing sit down and negotiate with CP and the Kahnawaki nation to open the CSX interchange up in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield? CSX seems to be commited to Quebec with their new intermodal terminal. Could Fortress run Stack trains from Saint John to North Baltimore Ohio via CSX at Adirondack Jct? Should be no clearance issues other than the dormant Adirondack Jct-Beauharnois stretch. I think some clever negotiating with CP for rights between St Jean and Adirondack Jct could be achievable.

MEC407 wrote:They could potentially revive "Canadian American," last used in the Iron Road days. Iron Road used the word Railroad in the name; Fortress could perhaps use Railway or Rail System if they wanted or needed to make it slightly different.

There are other possibilities, such as Montreal & Aroostook, Quebec & New England, etc. I'm sure they'll come up with something and hopefully it'll have a nice ring to it.

Canadian American is what I was thinking of when I said Canadian Atlantic. Was trying to think of other names that would fit the CDAC marks. Good brain exercise...

I immediately dropped from any of my imaginary names "Aroostook" since Fortress owns, at best, about 15 miles of track in the county... They could drop the "Maine" and become Montreal and Atlantic...

Just thoughts.

Maybe they'll put the name out for a vote here on the forum.

Another way of developing more freight for the MM&A would be to see if CN is willing to route its Saint John bound traffic via the MM&A verses using its own, much longer route around Maine. CN freight to Saint John has to run all of the way east to Moncton, then proceed west over CN's Sussex Subdivision to get into Saint John on a much further than going simply across Maine. Some kind of rate structure and an interchange point in or near Montreal would have to be worked out.