NECR and PAS lawyers are still duking it out over discovery: NECR lawyers are saying PAS hasn't produced all requested docs and info while PAS lawyers say too much irrelevant info has been requested. I skimmed through the latest 83 page STB submittal filed by NECR lawyers to see what nuggets there might be and in general it was pretty tedious stuff.
Here's the filing for any insomniacs out there...
https://www.stb.gov/filings/all.nsf/ba7 ... 241964.pdf
One tidbit that was sorta interesting is that PAS revealed how much they spent on average annually on fuel to provide service over the track rights mileage:
Per John Morris of PAS's Mechanical Department, PAS's locomotives burn on the average 3.5 Gallons per hour [editor's note: the following calcs make sense if he meant 3.5 gallons per mile]. PAS
generally uses two units per day over the NECR trackage rights, so the math would work as follows: 3.5 x 2 x 145.6 miles= 1,019.2 Gallons. 1,019.2 x $2.50 = $2,548 per day. $2,548 x 5 x 52 = $662,480 annual fuel expense. The total trackage rights are 72.8 miles. A round trip is 145.6 miles. PAS' s fuel price at E. Deerfield today is $1.80 per gallon, but historically has been much higher. Thus, Mr. Morris used $2.50 per gallon because PAS' s fuel surcharge tariff is designed to recover any amount over $2.50 per gallon.
Also PAS says in their reply to NECR that the only haulage traffic that PAS operates for another RR is NS oriented traffic. Wasn't there some supposition that PAS was toting WACR/VRS haulage traffic between WRJ and Bellows Falls and that was business that NECR thought PAS was not supposed to haul per the trackage rights agreement?