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  • Guilford Rail System Boston Opperations

  • Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.
Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.

Moderator: MEC407

 #242229  by rb
 
The disappearance of service has as much to do with poor planning by the local communities as it does with G. Look at how NYS has finally reversed its tune on Long Island, leasing freight rights to a private contractor and setting a $100 million dollar budget for a new intermodal center to be built on the grounds of an old state hospital. Who's going to step up here and provide some kind of coordinated plan for getting long haul freight back on the rails?

Traffic around here is some of the worst in the nation. I commute to a different account everyday, and what I see on 93, 95, 16, 28, 99, 114 etc etc is laughable. It's only going to get worse.

Without any sort of plan in place, trucks and big boxes take over everything. Now that we've had them both around for half a century, and we KNOW that they destroy both downtowns and highways, it's pathetic that they still manage to overrun everything.

 #245989  by cpf354
 
RailBus63 wrote:Perhaps, but at best they didn't put up much of a fight for their rights to serve the area. Contrast this with Conrail/CSX's efforts to keep Beacon Park yard - the city and Boston University have been dying to get their hands on that property for years, but the railroad wants to make sure they maintain an operating presence. Granted the CSX line has lucrative intermodal business compared to the merchandise freight B&M was hauling to Somerville, but if a forward-thinking management existed at Guilford they could have built a true intermodal terminal there to compete with Conrail. Or used that real estate to promote logistics-related industries that could have shipped via rail or intermodal as railroads have done elsewhere.

Jim
Guilford does compete with CSX for intermodal, through NS out of Ayer, rather than Boston. Most of CSX's intermodal actually doesn't get as far as Beacon Park, with Worcester being the primary destination. Much of CSX's Beacon Park intermodal is drayed to and from Massport's Conley Terminal in S. Boston, rather than the city area proper. There is a track in place that could be extended to Conley, but that's only in the planning stages. If that happened, the draying would be gone, and perhaps Beacon Park would be gone too, at least at it's present size.
Guilford and CP Rail made an experiment back in the 90's to haul containers out of Moran terminal in Charlestown, over the Mystic Branch, but that was not continued and now Moran is strictly used for auto unloading.
I understand Boston area railfan's frustration over Guilford's service levels in Boston; I miss seeing the big freights and pig trains on the B&M Fitchburg Route that I used to watch in my youth, but even the B&M itself during reorganization in the '70's recognized that decentralizing operations away from high cost urban terminals was a way to help the railroad survive. Some customers in Somerville and Cambridge are still rail customers, they just moved out to Ayer, Catina Spagna and Cains are two examples. The economic reality of Boston freight railroading is a tough one, and I think it's safe to say that eventually CSX will knuckle under and turn over Beacon Park to BU and Harvard, sell the Boston Cluster branches, and perhaps scale back through freight operations east of Worcester to accommodate the growing demand for more commuter trains to Worcester.
It isn't just Guilford or CSX, but state transportation planners don't have freight rail in mind when planning for future infrastructure development. The effort to raise clearances for double stacks has languished for over 10 years now, for example. There's plenty of blame, if that's what you want to call it, to go around, both from business and especially the policy makers.

 #246279  by MikeB
 
Where was Cains located? I remember Catania Spaga. I live nearby and would see that switched out every once in awhile.

 #246729  by consist
 
I haven't seen action at Gilette in a long time, a year or two at least. They would get occasional tankers of LP gas, just one or two at a time. I once saw a green BN boxcar on that siding about five years ago but I think it was a stray intended for either California Paints (if they were a customer that long ago, forget when they were added) or the lumber place near it (which no longer gets cars).

 #247565  by CSX Conductor
 
MikeB wrote:Where was Cains located?
Ayer, correct?

 #247668  by mick
 
I think Cain's was always in Ayer.
Last edited by mick on Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:27 am, edited 2 times in total.

 #247745  by RailBus63
 
What happened to the ADM facility located near Lechmere Square? Did this relocate elsewhere?

 #247821  by mick
 
Not anywhere
Last edited by mick on Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

 #248750  by Container
 
"Most of CSX's intermodal actually doesn't get as far as Beacon Park, with Worcester being the primary destination. Much of CSX's Beacon Park intermodal is drayed to and from Massport's Conley Terminal in S. Boston, rather than the city area proper."

What is your source of that information?

I rarely see ocean containers at the CSX Beacon yard. Boston primarily handles domestic intermodal containers, and Worcester primarily handles domestic trailers. There are some exceptions to their service matrix. The majority of the container lines keep their CY and chassis pools at P&W RR's stackbridge intermodal yard in Worcester. I don't believe much at all is drayed between Conley and Boston..