CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

So there is potential growth for rail service at the port on the south side then

Well, low and behold, all indications out of Billerica now are that they are proceeding with the sale to CSXT.

As to CSX's endgame, that is still a major headscratcher.

PAS is another wildcard.

Fascinating. All these years — decades — of courting NS, including the JV, and they end up selling to CSX?

Truth has always been stranger than fiction with this company.

There has been chatter for years about moving ME intermodal, such as Poland springs water containers, to someplace in CT for NYC distribution. A csx combination would I think allow that to occur at cedar hill.

They could even bring PS traffic all the way to their terminal in North Bergen for direct NYC access.

The Poland Springs warehouse is in White Plains NY about half an hour west of Naugatuck on I-84.
Pan- Am already has rights to use Cedar Hill for intermodal, but I understand that is limited by lack of available property and/or need for capital expenditures that Tim Mellon isn't willing to do.

NS doesn’t want to purchase the PAS route , or Pan Am, because it will inadvertently affect their operating ratio, which is all they care about nowadays. NS has been in trim only mode system wide for almost two years. This position by CSX is forcing their hand which they didn’t want to do. That CSX is actually trying to do this , attempting to grow the railroad, is shocking to me.

Totally bewildering. Something has to give with PAS. NS will have to pony up the money to get control of D-3 to Ayer if they want to stay in New England and the surf board will want competition. Maybe just maybe there will be a Conrail North to satisfy that requirement. Lots of twist and turns in this saga. Personally I don't see St. Johns Intermodal as being a big factor. They already have NYNJ for that and the amount of money that would have to be spent to get D-1 and other segments to Barber's up to Class 3 would be astronomical. Go figure.

R&P update:

https://railsandports.com/2020/11/par-t ... hoe-drops/

This is kind of saying the Hoosac Tunnel route will become the main route through Massachusetts for both CSX and NS! Maybe the Comm. of Mass helping with the double stacking project will be the reward for the proposed East-West Passenger project use of the B&A. Too bad the Fitchburg branch is no longer available to Framingham.

More:

https://railsandports.com/2020/11/csx-m ... -corridor/

I don't see anything in there indicating that. That is not going to happen with the B&A having direct and faster connections to the west and south.

CSX does hand over a ton of terminating traffic to PAR I wonder if they are just interested in it as a terminal railroad so to speak.

newpylong wrote:I don't see anything in there indicating that. That is not going to happen with the B&A having direct and faster connections to the west and south. There is nothing on PAS for CSXT outside of a big local customer base and the VRS.

Agreed, the PAS offers no good routing options to the 2 B&A intermodal terminals or the auto facility at East Brookfield and I can guarantee you that they are not walking away from any of those facilities anytime soon, not to mention the fact that the Hoosac cannot handle domestic DS and is a lot of $$ and work away from being able to do so. At most, I could see manifest traffic from PAR points moving over Rotterdam vs Barbers but no way the B&A becomes CSX's redheaded stepchild in New England.

ANR&P is good at mining info off the Facebooks.... someone who is known for being typically correct and “in the know” (I cringe saying that phrase) posted that CSX wants to use the PAS line due to the Castleton Bridge needing your be replaced at an absurd cost. Then the B&A line would be sold to MassDOT for passenger rail... CSX would access their existing markets via the PAS Conn River and line to Worcester, as well as gain the rest into Maine. So I guess there is more than meets the eye... that bridge is certainly not something you can replace cheaply, so this might make some good sense. You’d need to figure out local traffic (I guess the CSAO solution) but otherwise overhead could go CSX without issue.

The kicker with the STB is that they weigh competition relative to the market. That is to say, aside the fact that Ayer west faces obvious concerns with a single line (so it would likely need to be joint), east of there might be ok as long as shippers file support and not concerns.... CP on the east end wiped out the arguement of no class I in Maine, and the SLR adds in slight relief as well.

With CSX and NS on the Pan Am line, they could split the cost for upgrades, tunnel clearance and probably get state funding to help

How would you get to Selkirk for NE traffic to be classified? Reverse move at RJ. Granted if the Castletown bridge needs work it would be costly but CSX has consistently been keeping the B&A in a good class 4 condition include lots of trackwork being done over this summer and fall. I don't see them walking away from that.

I just don't see it being feasible to run all that traffic from Rotterdam to Springfield. The amount of upgrading required, from track work, to signaling to clearances would be astronomical. In terms of the Castleton Bridge, these same sources also said it was down to one track which I am fairly certain is not the case.