Ethanol Trains to Revere

The Fitchburg is shorter and is the quickest way to get off of Pan Am's lousy track beyond Ayer.

The wrinkle to this also is that the T is no longer charging Pan Am for use of their tracks. This was in exchange for considerations on Pan Am owned trackage out to Westminster for commuter rail expansion, and options to purchase the Worcester Main and the sections of the Freight Main between Lowell Jct and the Willows that Pan Am still owns. So there no longer is any incentive for Pan Am to limit the mileage over MBTA owned track it hauls freight over.

cpf354 wrote:The wrinkle to this also is that the T is no longer charging Pan Am for use of their tracks. This was in exchange for considerations on Pan Am owned trackage out to Westminster for commuter rail expansion, and options to purchase the Worcester Main and the sections of the Freight Main between Lowell Jct and the Willows that Pan Am still owns. So there no longer is any incentive for Pan Am to limit the mileage over MBTA owned track it hauls freight over.

Huh? Where did you get this from? There was talk for years about the EOT purchasing the CSX-owned tracks and not one iota about them and Pan Am. If the EOT did in fact purchase - or considered purchasing - Pan Am's tracks, I'm sure there would have been news and in the papers as Lt. Gov. Tim Murray has made the purchasing of the tracks used by commuter rail a big priority of his (mostly so that the MBTA would no longer be at the whims of CSX). Furthermore, the EOT has absolutely no use for a 10 mph railroad between two suburbs, and Lowell Jct and Willows are on two different lines. And if they were selling/has sold the Worcester Main, why would Pan Am even bother attempting to fix the tracks up to 25 mph in some locations?

I've heard that the State was looking at the line from Ayer to Worcester several times. I believe there are some news paper articles about this that are fairly recent.

The Worcester-Ayer line was definately looked at by the T for commuter service and they actually hi-railed the line with Pan Am a couple years back. I think it may have been a back-up plan (and a foolish one at that!) of getting more service from Worcester to Boston if they couldn't work out the deal with CSXT for the B&A.

Has there been any news on this development? Anyone seen any construction?

Thanks!

I do have some good news. I have it on extremely good word that even as far fetched as this seems, this is a done deal and will happen. The NS has hired a private contractor to rehab East Boston Branch, and brush clearing might have already started. The company that is encroaching on the row is getting the boot.

The Ethanol will come via the Fitchburg. Originally they wanted to send it over the Stoney and down the New Hampshire Division but PAR didn't want it for some reason so now NS will bypass them entirely and strictly use the PAS and the MBCR. Keep in mind, they no longer have to pay to run trains on the T. I bet they will have fun with flyover...

great news. too bad the saugus branch isnt involved, then we'd get 2 lines rehabbed.

Awesome news!

NS? NS has no control of the railroad east of Ayer. Why would they hire a track crew to work on track they don't have control over, and why wouldn't they use their own since they provided crews for the Patriot Corridor?

We'll see what actually happens. But both a private contractor and NS doing the transportation sound reasonable to me: First, the track is out of service and there's no need to be involved with RR operations until they get to replacing the switch to the Eastern Route. Second, summer is high season for RR track crews and all the regular NS gangs are probably booked through year's end. Third, it's not a very big job and a long way from home base (or even company rails) in an expensive urban area. As to why NS, if I was Guilford's insurance company and considered their maintenance vs. 8,000 tons of flammable liquid in a single train traversing the Boston suburbs, I'd be thinking "premium increase".

Has anyone been down there to see if brush clearing has started?

I spent a few minutes looking around the area. I wasn't sure what was public/private property so I stuck to the couple roads in the area. I didn't see any sign of activity. There were still lots of vehicles, etc. parked on the ROW.

Yes they have started to clear brush and hay-baling the seawall along the creek. So far a very small crew, one backhoe, one bobcat, and about 1/2 dozen or so workers, just been cutting brush, clearing a few trees and trash, and placing hay bales. They started in the Northern point of the river were the tracks start to run along side, behind the hotel.

a couple more of these maybe we'll get a new BO-1