Maine Trains

I know that Pan Am symbols are a moving target, but could anybody give a brief description of recent operational patterns north of Portland? PORU/RUPO, POWA/WAPO the only eastbound trains out of Rigby Yard? WABK/BKWA and 3 days a week SJWA/WASJ or some combination thereof east of Waterville? How about locals/road switchers? Any information greatly appreciated.

riffian wrote:I know that Pan Am symbols are a moving target, but could anybody give a brief description of recent operational patterns north of Portland? PORU/RUPO, POWA/WAPO the only eastbound trains out of Rigby Yard? WABK/BKWA and 3 days a week SJWA/WASJ or some combination thereof east of Waterville? How about locals/road switchers? Any information greatly appreciated.

PORU/RUPO run daily. I'm a bit out of touch with the schedules on that pair. Seems mid-late afternoon meet at Leeds Jct was the norm last summer, but that may have changed.
POWA/WAPO run daily, and last night there were 2, 1 almost at Waterville when a second left Rigby. I suspect the first was the previous days held up... Timing on POWA/WAPO is sporadic, seems like at least 1 is running after dark.
AYWA/WAAY from Ayer to Waterville is also running (at least on occasion) and from what I can tell, this is handling traffic that would have been on POSJ/SJPO. When they SJ trains back to Waterville they apparently brought back AYWA/WAAY pairings. Though I think some days SJ traffic gets combined into WAPO/POWA. Hopefully someone else can chime in with more specific information.
WABK/BKWA runs daily, this is as "road local" as you're going to get. They switch NMJ, and will work Detroit as needed if a WA-# local doesn't go up to get Detroit. Otherwise its just traffic for the Buck.
SJWA/WASJ is running daily, or at least 6 days/week. Trains of modest size, sometimes as small as 35 and other days as big as 80 or 90. 3 GP40's is a standard, seemingly regardless of train size. They've been meeting at Old Town early morning recently, means a midnight(ish) departure from Keag for SJWA. The line is terrible up there, hard to really nail down much for times outside of direct observation points because so much can happen to a train or crew in 8 hours. Makes SJWA/WASJ and BKWA/WABK hard to predict.

Switchers are much more numerous, Rigby boasts a handful of PO-#'s. Waterville has 2 or 3 a day in the yard (WA-1 or WA-2 or WA-3) and Old Town has OT-1 daily, they switch OT F&F and will work to NMJ to drop stuff for transit west. There are also SAPPI locals from Waterville to Hinckley, 2 most days, usually with a GP9 in the lineup if one is running... Then there are the WA-# locals that work as needed to Detroit and Augusta. PO-# that work to Westbrook or Yard 8 as needed.

And of course you have Downeaster service...

Isn't there also a local switch job in Rumford?

Yes, I forgot the switcher or 2 at both Rumford and Rileys.

Where is Riley's?

Verso-Jay.
Goes back to the original mill owner I think.

gokeefe wrote:Where is Riley's?

2 mills on Rumford Branch.
Riley's MP 24.8 on the Rumford Branch. Named after Edwin Riley who consolidated paper/pulp making in the 19th Century with new mill in Jay. IP bought mill and has been very active rail user for 100 years. Now Verso.
MP 47.2 End of track is Rumford Paper (NewPage now Verso as well.)

No kidding. I thought the Rumford switch job covered the entire branch. Interesting. Thanks!

Interesting to think that the Switch jobs in Maine on the Rumford branch may be some of the longest continuously operated jobs anywhere in the United States.

Thanks for the quick response. It must be tough to manage the crew base up there (presumably Waterville and Portland) with so many widely scattered crew starts. Is it possible that an extra-board man could get called one day for Old Town and the next for Rumford, or Riley's?

fogg1703 wrote:Riley's MP 24.8 on the Rumford Branch. Named after Edwin Riley who consolidated paper/pulp making in the 19th Century with new mill in Jay. IP bought mill and has been very active rail user for 100 years. Now Verso.
MP 47.2 End of track is Rumford Paper (NewPage now Verso as well.)

Technically speaking the mill in Jay is Verso's Androscoggin Mill, named after the Androscoggin River that runs around the mill property. But the railroad still refers to the east and west end yard switches as "Rileys East" and "Rileys West." And Verso doesn't yet own Rumford/New Page though it seems the sale should go through relatively problem free.

riffian wrote:Thanks for the quick response. It must be tough to manage the crew base up there (presumably Waterville and Portland) with so many widely scattered crew starts. Is it possible that an extra-board man could get called one day for Old Town and the next for Rumford, or Riley's?

Pan Am keeps people on the boards in Rumford, and Jay. Switch crews are all locally sourced and don't go on duty at Portland or Waterville. Rileys is used as crew base for RUPO/PORU as well, with road crews working up and down the branch out of Jay, since it takes 3 or 4 crews to roundtrip a PORU/RUPO.

In Maine there is a crew based in Keag, local residents that go on and off duty at Keag. There is another crew base at Old Town (or NMJ as they see fit) with a handful of crews that handle OT-1, BKWA/WABK and WASJ/SJWA. I believe the BK-1 switcher has a crew sourced locally (most of the mill switchers are local, so no cab ride should be involved for a mill crew). Then there is Waterville, Rileys and Rigby for crew bases on southern D1. They also used to maintain a crew base in Calais or Woodland, before they sold that line, because the impracticality of cabbing a crew out from Bangor.

Crew calling is largely dependent on who is certified where. Crews aren't required to certify on all of D1. You can only be called to work on territory you are certified on, or you need a pilot. Its also not going to happen that a crewman works Rigby 3rd shit and tomorrow is on the SJWA out of Keag. People move around, but not on demand like that...

It's called territory qualification. Certification is something different (more like licenses). This is an operational nightmare that happens when you are short staffed. A green conductor might only be qualified on bits and pieces of a territory, and his engineer other sections. Hard to call crews and run trains like that.

There are also very few "local residents" on the railroad. People drive hours to go to their terminals, all due to seniority. For a time I used to pass an "older" man on my way to work every day. I drove 40 miles east, he drove 40 miles west. Common sense would say both people go to work closest to home, but that's the union for you.

I am not sure about now but these large mills used to have their own spare boards outside of Waterville and Rigby.

Qualifications, that was the term I was looking for...
Thanks for the corrections.

Any spares needed on the Rumford or Riley's jobs would be called out of the Portland based employees.

Well, D1 can be split up really east of Waterville and west to Portland.

Up nawth here, there is a spare board in Bangor. Also, there are dayjob switchers at Old Town and Bucksport. OT-1 will work Old Town and Northern Maine. WABK/BKWA isn't a 7 day a week job, I think it is 3 days a week each way with trains running inbetween as needed. Also been hearing WANM/NMWA a bit as of lately, which is really just a WASJ/SJWA or WABK/BKWA extra. WASJ and SJWA have been pretty regular and I think there are 3 crews for each with a 7th being the relief. Not exactly sure about the Buck.

So to summarize, on any given day you can have an WASJ/SJWA, BKWA/WABK, NMWA/WANM (EXTRA) and two switchers working. Chances are you wont see the extra in addition to the other two jobs. Probably seen 2 - 4 road trains a day between Waterville and NMJ with 2 - 4 between NMJ and Keag.

On to Portland to Waterville. There are 4 SAPPI jobs and they are pretty busy and regular. Between Waterville and Portland you usually see 4 - 6 daily trains. WAPO/POWA and SJPO/POSJ are pretty interchangable as of late. In fact, I've seen a few combined under WAPO/POWA. Also, they have been running two sections of WAPO/POWA as well (instead of a SJPO/POSJ). Interchange traffic with the MNR is actually growing a bit, with at times 10 - 15 cars on a job going to or from the MNR. I've seen grain, lumber and pulp as well as some tanks moving that way. The grain is coming off of CSX.

The Rumford jobs make up the next two trains. On a busy day (aka a slow day) they can have 8 road trains on the line between Portland and Waterville. With Amtrak running to Brunswick, as well as DO-1 and occasionally a DJ-1 out of Rigby, things can get plugged up very fast. They really need to put in the double iron between Royal and west Falmouth. Danville is starting to actually work as a yard much better, but still having issues with the CPs there. In order to switch tracks, they have to call the dispatcher. Allegedly the signals are cut in now as well.

The most interesting changes will probably come between Portland and Danville, as well as Old Town to Mattawamkeag. Now that Fortress has won the MMA, the OT - Keag section is saved. Even if Fortress falls on its face, it will probably be at least 5 or 10 years under their ownership. If PAR wants to recapture oil (And I've heard they do) then they need to put some decent cheddar into the line up east.