MEC/B&M Track Conditions 1981/1983

A recent discussion via private message (PM) with another member led to the following question. What was the condition of Maine Central and Boston & Maine tracks at the time of sale to Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI)?

I was under the impression that the physical plant was significantly deteriorated. The other member had an understanding that overall the physical plant was in good shape with 40 mph top speeds on the main line and 25 mph speeds on the branch lines.

If anyone can clarify these points their assistance would be appreciated.

I can't remember where I saw the photo's but there are pictures of the B&M detouring a frieght over the tracks from Concord, NH via Cannan and Enfield to White River Jct. around the same time frame. The track speed was 5 MPH then. It left me with the impression the rail system was in bad shape all around.

I've seen videos on YouTube of B&M freights on the mainline in southern Maine/NH in the late '70s and early '80s, moving along at a pretty good clip. I wasn't there with a radar gun so I won't take a guess at how fast they were going, but I've lived next to Guilford tracks for enough years to know what 10 and 25 look like, and this was definitely faster than 25.

As for the Maine Central, the anecdotes I've heard from former MEC employees and from people who railfanned in the late '70s and early '80s was that it only took two and a half to three hours for a freight to go from Waterville to South Portland -- compared with the six to eight hours it took from the mid-late '80s to today.

I think both physical plants were in pretty decent shape around the time Mellon purchased these properties. The B&M had fallen into some pretty serious deferred maintenance, like most northeastern roads, in the early '70's but received a mid-'70's infusion of capital in the form of low-interest loans, IIRC, from the US that went into new welded rail. I think, too, around this time they received money from the sale and then on-going operation of Boston-area commuter operations which eased their financial situation and allowed better maintenance of their plant prior to the sale. As an originator of a large amount of rail-friendly traffic, paper, with finances reflecting their position, I believe the MEC was pretty well-maintained throughout the couple of decades leading up to the purchase.

The B & M East-West Main was in pretty good shape. The road got a $25 million loan from the FRA under the 4R program and had a major signal upgrade, I believe Ayer-Gardner, some 132 lb. new rail from British Steel (of all places), stone ballasting and tie work and some more liner plate in the Hoosac Tunnel. The freight speed limit was 40 mph west of Ayer.
A number of equilateral turnouts were placed at the beginnings and ends of double track. A few years earlier the B & M was awarded grants from the New England Regional Commission for both main and branchline ties and some work on bridges; the NERC is now defunct. Just before Amtrak established its Montrealer about 1972 or so, B & M got funds to do major tie and ballast work, Springfield-E Northfield and Brattleboro-Windsor. I was working in B & M Accounting and Property Records when these loans and grants were being awarded.

As noted above by Mr Behr, the B&M mainline was well maintained and in good shape for a freight line at the time of the purchase by the Mellon organization under the 4R grant. The freight speed limit for the entire Portland-Mechanicville line was 40 mph except for a few local restrictions. This was the result of significant trackwork performed by the Dustin administration. The B&M's portion of the Connecticut River Line south of White River Junction was similarly 40 mph freight trackage and up to 55 mph in places for the Montrealer. Since the latter was using the line in the middle of the night on a leisurely schedule set by Amtrak based on end point times at Washington and Montreal, there was no particular need for higher passenger speeds.

toolmaker wrote:I can't remember where I saw the photo's but there are pictures of the B&M detouring a frieght over the tracks from Concord, NH via Cannan and Enfield to White River Jct. around the same time frame. The track speed was 5 MPH then. It left me with the impression the rail system was in bad shape all around.

That was an out-of-service line used for an emergency detour following a derailment. Its condition was definitely NOT representative of active B&M branchlines in the early 1980s.

It was not easy to chase the GP-40s when they were new - shoot them at Rigby, catch up with them again at Berwick, again maybe at Haverhill. "Marked for delete" branches that weren't earning their keep weren't getting much maintenance, but I agree with Tom about the main lines.

A few years earlier the B & M was awarded grants from the New England Regional Commission for both main and branchline ties and some work on bridges; the NERC is now defunct.

Who was the New England Regional Commission working for and what was their purpose?

The consensus appears to indicate that track conditions on the MEC & B&M at the time of purchase by GTI were good. Were the railroads making enough money at the time in order to allow GTI to maintain the state of good repair or where the conditions merely brought about by a one-time infusion of federal funds? In short was the company making enough money to sustain the state of good repair?

gokeefe wrote:

A few years earlier the B & M was awarded grants from the New England Regional Commission for both main and branchline ties and some work on bridges; the NERC is now defunct.

Who was the New England Regional Commission working for and what was their purpose?

The consensus appears to indicate that track conditions on the MEC & B&M at the time of purchase by GTI were good. Were the railroads making enough money at the time in order to allow GTI to maintain the state of good repair or where the conditions merely brought about by a one-time infusion of federal funds? In short was the company making enough money to sustain the state of good repair?

They were bouncing back in a big way by 1980. They worked their asses off to earn some lucrative new business, bought their lines/trackage rights in CT for a song and made very good money off the brand new business those lines brought, benefited from the Staggers Act just like every other major carrier, and finally closed out the bankruptcy bill in 1983 with the sale to Guilford. The investment in upgrading its sickly track infrastructure helped them a lot of that business. Also helped that selling off to the MBTA all trackage that commuter trains ran shed a ton of physical plant mileage needing upgrade that in turn was substantially upgraded at state expense to also benefit of B&M's retained trackage rights over those lines. Not to mention cutting a lot of decrepit-condition and money-losing backwater branches altogether.

So, yes, it was sustainable. And, yes, they did earn it.

Back about this time frame MERU was going from Mickeyville to Rigby with one crew, Just as NE 84 and NE 87 had been doing before that.
I believe the GP40-2 extra horses really helped them make the time. The Rigby to Worc were also one crew I believe. I don't know if Rigby to Bangor was one crew or if the crew turned back at Waterville.
Correction welcomed

Rigby-Bangor and Bangor-Rigby were usually one crew, although a crew would occasionally can
on the road somewhere. If a westbound canned inside PT Limit (Riverside St-Portland) a yard
switcher crew would go bring the train in. Outside PT Limit, a new road crew would be called.
That all changed with the coming of the big G.

So when and what happenned in the early 1980's once GTI took control at MEC and B&M that changed these trends?

Did GTI in fact plan ahead that they were going to deliberately neglect infrastructure and lose business? I find that hard to believe.

Perhaps they felt there were so-called 'cost savings' that could be taken to increase profit while still maintaining business? Perhaps they simply misjudged how much deferred maintenance they really could get away with.

I can't remember when they got in the airline business. The conventional wisdom always indicated that once they did money from profitable rail operations went to support unprofitable air operations.

Several things happened. Train crews went from 4 men to 2 men, leaving one guy on the ground to do
all the switching, including brake test, etc. Many stations were decommissioned, meaning conductors
had more responsibility for paperwork, especially atg interchange points. MOW was cut back drastically
allowing ROW to deteriorate. Many trackside customers who did not ship or recieve a minimum number
of cars per week or month were cut off.

The list goes on, but you get the idea.

To expand on merrman's post and be at risk of further re-poking the GRS/GTI/ST/PAR hornet's nest with a stick, what happened was an ownership/ management structure with greatly reduced outside accountability. As a privately-held entity, Guilford and its rebrandings had/have no outside stockholders or bankruptcy referees to answer to. To perhaps oversimplify, the Reagan administration was also not interested in interventionist regulation, and its role in the PATCO strike was interpreted widely as being against organized labor. Given those indicators, deferred maintainenance and the various other Team Timothy approaches to cost cutting, including de facto contract abrogations and attempts to reduce if not eliminate much of the between-yard customer switch-outs and become much more a bridge line, produced a sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly decreasing customer base, with the aim of maintaining a captive and rail-dependent cohort of higher-tonnage shippers and consignees -- read forest products, paper, and coal -- who would, however grudgingly, tolerate slower speeds.
PAS -- the joint PAR-NS -- venture has introduced some outside accountability, and with good luck, that will have an eventual positive effect on the balance of PAR.
Hopefully, I've remained a sufficient distance from the gratuitous variety of Guilford bashing.

merrman wrote:Several things happened. Train crews went from 4 men to 2 men, leaving one guy on the ground to do
all the switching, including brake test, etc. Many stations were decommissioned, meaning conductors
had more responsibility for paperwork, especially atg interchange points. MOW was cut back drastically
allowing ROW to deteriorate. Many trackside customers who did not ship or recieve a minimum number
of cars per week or month were cut off.

I know it's somewhat tangential but this seems to beg the question, Why?

1. Where these changes made because of a difference in philosophy for the railroad's operations?
-Was GTI simply adopting a philosophy that they weren't interested in making money 'playing small-ball' with local freight movements?

or

2. Where these changes made because of greed?

or

3. Where these changes made because of inexperience combined with a desire to improve the bottom-line?
-GTI didn't realize initially how important local movements were to their overall customer base...in essence they didn't understand the larger picture of how B&M/MEC worked to deliver transportation services to their customers...?

I understand there's a strong consensus around the idea that GTI wanted to focus on bridge traffic but why was there an apparent miscalculation on local traffic, which at least in theory to our discussion here was marginally profitable?

I'm asking these questions at this depth of detail now because I think this is the furthest I've ever seen this discussed. Most of these discussions never can seem to get beyond anger and personal attacks. There are also several people posting to this thread who were there 'at the end' and might have some ideas about what happenned in the immediate aftermath of the change in ownership.