CSX Selling Trackage

Ryanontherails wrote:So why do a number of people believe that their potential sale of the Boston and Albany mean that CSX is going to dump all of their services east of the Hudson River? I took it to mean that they will sell the line but retain their trackage rights. They no longer own most of their tracks in Eastern Massachusetts but still run trains there. MassDOT will inevitably get Worcester-Springfield, possibly the rest of the way to the state line if New York State is interested in the section from the state line to the junction in Shondack. Who owns the tracks from Shondack to Rensselaer? That's a !

That being said, once (if?) that goes, they won't have a whole lot left out here. I'm sure MassDOT will get the Fitchburg Subdivision eventually. All that's left is Franklin-Milford and then a bunch of industrial tracks. Will anyone take those over?

You are the one taking it wrong. Everything east of the Hudson is for sale including Oak Point and the rest of the NYC area branches, and will be sold outright to the highest bidder no strings attached. I was only wrong in using the term fire sale. What Amtrak owns is irrelevant, this is not like the previous deals. They will have to work out new deals with the new owners.

Expect the Post Road Branch to be abandoned, it's not a priority corridor for high-speed rail and will most likely connect with nothing at CP187.

About the rest of the system...

Engineer Spike mentioned the PM (and also presumably the Porter Sub) and the New Rock Sub as potential targets for CP and IAIS respectively. Anyone else have thoughts on these? (For that matter, would Amtrak consider buying the Porter?)

Ironman wrote: You are the one taking it wrong. Everything east of the Hudson is for sale including Oak Point and the rest of the NYC area branches, and will be sold outright to the highest bidder no strings attached. I was only wrong in using the term fire sale. What Amtrak owns is irrelevant, this is not like the previous deals. They will have to work out new deals with the new owners.

Expect the Post Road Branch to be abandoned, it's not a priority corridor for high-speed rail and will most likely connect with nothing at CP187.

No, I'm not disagreeing with you whether (almost?) everything east of the Hudson River is for sale. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking why you (among others) think CSX is going to drop all of their service there. As in, every CSX customer in Massachusetts will either need to find another railroad to provide service or just be dropped entirely. I've seen no indication of that.

And while I might've been wrong about calling it a priority high-speed rail corridor, Boston-Albany is indeed listed on the 2009 High-Speed Rail Strategic Plan. Unlike most of the other corridors listed, there is a chance for the entire route to be owned by a combination of Massachusetts, New York, and Amtrak. I fully expect it to be publicly owned.

The BIG unknown is how far CSX will retreat in Ma,they could still retain the B&A from the Springfield Diamond(Amtrak/PAS/PAR)west.
Or to the Hudson River. The same goes for New York City Metro area,CSX retains the Line Haul service Oak Point-Selkirk,just sells off the
local service to NY&A or P&W(G&W),or give it all up at the Hudson River.
Figure on some loco sales of units with Cab Signals/ASC/ACSES equipment,if CSX retreats to the Hudson River(Selkirk).

If I am correct, Amtrak leases the line from Poughkeepsie to Hoffmans. I suppose CSX will say no reasonable offer refused for this line.

Backshophoss wrote:The BIG unknown is how far CSX will retreat in Ma,they could still retain the B&A from the Springfield Diamond(Amtrak/PAS/PAR)west.
Or to the Hudson River. The same goes for New York City Metro area,CSX retains the Line Haul service Oak Point-Selkirk,just sells off the
local service to NY&A or P&W(G&W),or give it all up at the Hudson River.
Figure on some loco sales of units with Cab Signals/ASC/ACSES equipment,if CSX retreats to the Hudson River(Selkirk).

How much longer will CSX's bridge over the Hudson be usable? Since there's rarely any road congestion on the parallel I-90/Thruway/Turnpike, seems to me CSX might do well to shed the bridge and everything east of it and just let its customers move by truck.

When I see freights crawling over the Hudson on CSX (while I'm driving 70mph on an uncongested stretch of Thruway/Turnpike) I often ask myself how is a train crawling at 5mph (2mph? 10?) a winning competitive strategy? The answer seems to be: in the long run, it isn't. My guess is that the bridge is only economical to operate in "depreciation mode" and not in asset-replacement mode, and certainly not real fast, heavy, double-stack mode where rail can "win" vs trucks. The value of the freight it moves appears insufficient to justify the investment to keep it open in the long run (the bridge is just too tall and long)

Now, NYS might be motivated to buy/upgrade the rail bridge if the alternative is that all of CSX's business switches to trucks which then proceed to beat the life out of the Thruway at 70mph and cheap thruway prices.

NY Central built their Bridges to last,unaware of any structure problems there, IF Maybrook Bridge was not fire damaged,and was still useable,
would have become questionable due to age of that structure.

bostontrainguy wrote:Grafton & Upton probably?

If you mean Franklin-Milford, that one is going to the state and the G&U will retain trackage rights there, and will also gain new trackage rights to Walpole.

Backshophoss wrote:The BIG unknown is how far CSX will retreat in Ma,they could still retain the B&A from the Springfield Diamond(Amtrak/PAS/PAR)west.

But again, who says they are going to retreat? Sell the tracks, yes. That won't change anything operationally. But the only way for them to retreat is to offload everything to another carrier that will interchange with them. Would someone like Mass. Coastal Railroad take all the business in Massachusetts and bring it to Selkirk?

Arlington wrote:How much longer will CSX's bridge over the Hudson be usable? Since there's rarely any road congestion on the parallel I-90/Thruway/Turnpike, seems to me CSX might do well to shed the bridge and everything east of it and just let its customers move by truck.

Slow speeds could be attributable to a number of things besides a bridge slow order - low speed limits in the Selkirk yard area, trains taking the Schodack Sub down to the Hudson Line, etc. The B&A still supports around 15+ trains per day (2-3 pairs of intermodals, 1 pair of autoracks, 4 pairs of manifests), with almost everything south of the Pan Am mainline moving in/out of New England via that bridge, not to mention everything coming out of NYC proper and the east shore of the Hudson. If the bridge ends up in NYS's hands and needs repair, I think they'll find it worth their while to fix it.

That said, it is possible that the scale could tip toward freight moving via the former B&M (IIRC the B&A played second fiddle to the Maybrook Line in the pre-PC days, so it hasn't always been the dominant freight route), but considering that there was a significant investment only ~5 years back to clear Selkirk-Worcester for full domestic doublestacks and greatly increase the efficiency of the Worcester yard, it's hard to imagine the B&A going away altogether. The former B&M is flatter and straighter, but even since the PAS deal there always seems to be a slow order somewhere, with sidings quite frequently clogged with tied-down trains. My anecdotal experience observing the two lines is that trains get over the road much faster on the B&A despite the poorer geography. Whoever gets it will still likely have the better route into New England, as long as they can maintain it and interchange efficiently with CSX at Selkirk.

Its interesting to me that the biggest impact of all seems to be in New England given the potential sale of the B&A along with Oak Point and residual freight rights on the NEC in CT. It is even furthermore interesting that G&W seems to not be a potential buyer. Considering NS's current plans for the Hoosac Tunnel I find it hard to imagine that they wouldn't at least consider it.

Not surprised by this "strategic withdrawal." With Hunter gone and not able to bring about the projected profits, I'm sure Mantle Ridge wants to cash in their chips ASAP for as much as they can extract from CSX and move onto their next victim, I mean acquisition.

Speed limit over the bridge is 30 MPH. You usually don't see trains doing track speed here because westbounds will be entering the yard in about 2 miles and eastbound it's single track after the bridge so trains often wait on the west end of the bridge. Some trains will struggle to get up to 30 in that distance.

There is no way a class 2 or 3 road will maintain the B&A to its current standard, which is excellent, but it doesn't really matter. The goal is not to have other railroads gather the N.E. traffic to interchange it at Selkirk. It's to totally give up that traffic, downgrade Selkirk yard and get rid of a massive number of employees. They figure this will more than make up for the lost traffic in the short term. Boost the stock for a bit.

Remember guys, we are dealing with short term management here.

kilroy wrote:Not surprised by this "strategic withdrawal." With Hunter gone and not able to bring about the projected profits, I'm sure Mantle Ridge wants to cash in their chips ASAP for as much as they can extract from CSX and move onto their next victim, I mean acquisition.

This is exactly what's going on. They have no more rabbits to pull out of their hats, so this is it.

Assuming the above is true (which I think it very well may be) these lines represent extraordinary opportunities for railroads with a more long term view. The Boston & Albany line hasn't changed hands as a single segment since July 1900 (NYC Lease). Everything else since then has been corporate succession or national level acquisitions.

Agreed, and the men on the east end will most likely be just fine, in fact better off because of this. Selkirk however, is done. The line north out of Syracuse to Canada will be sold, the Hudson line and the interchange with PAS a Rotterdam Jct. will be gone as well.