New Brunswick Southern Railway

Question. I was rereading old fourm posts when I came across reference to CN selling some track in Saint John to the NBSR in the early 2000s. I checked RailGuide and it appeared that this was the case. Can someone confirm? Thanks.

Shortline614 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2024 7:41 pm Question. I was rereading old fourm posts when I came across reference to CN selling some track in Saint John to the NBSR in the early 2000s. I checked RailGuide and it appeared that this was the case. Can someone confirm? Thanks.

I understood it is more like a long term lease but I can't verify one way or the other. CN was prepared to shut down operations much like CP had done on the McAdam sub. CN told Irving that they needed certain levels of business which would make it financially viable to keep the Sussex sub operational so Irving had to make sure they kept it at that level.

My information comes from 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand sources so If somebody has something to add or subtract from this, feel free. The terms of the lease are not publicly available as far as I know.

The best map to show who manages what today is at
https://rac.jmaponline.net/canadianrailatlas/

CN owns Island Yard and the trackage east of Mill Street. Its leased long term to NBSR, while CN owns the trackage from the wye on the refinery spur, to the potash facility and the transflo facility in the middle of Island Yard. Which at the time of posting, the transflo facility is shutting down at the end of the year which has something to do with CN. JD Irving's RST Transport is the primary customer and it sounds like NBSR will be adding capacity at RST's Transload at Bayview over by the port, to make up for the lost capacity.

Thanks for the info. When I first had this question, I checked RailGuide. It showed CN operating trackage directly in Saint John back-in-the-day, but NBSR operating it now. The Canadian Rail Atlas shows the same thing.

My question was spurred on by a rumor from a friend of a friend who works for NBSR, saying that the Irvings had signed an agreement with CPKC to sell. I don't believe such rumors, especially with zero confirmation, but it is interesting to think about. The Irvings don't seem like the kind of people to sell anyways.

I am 99% sure its just a rumor. Someone started spreading that after the CPKC Holiday Train went to Saint John last month, because you know just because CPKC sent the train to Saint John 100% means they are buying Irving's railroads without notifying the employees first or giving any sort of press release on the matter. I have talked with the employees I know, there has been no talk of anything of the sort except rumors in the railfan groups of Facebook and there has been no mention of it in any of the weekly newsletters the company puts out.

Irving wont sell, they have seen how CPKC struggles to meet demand and they know that they would never be able to match the service or price of transportation their railroad provides the other JDI divisions. Adding to that, Irving just bought a whole mess of log cars and is working to get 30 something GP31ECO rebuilds. If the railroad was truly being sold they wouldn't have just dumped money into doing all that.

I suspected as much.

Who knows what CP and JDI's plan are, but in any event they will have to work very closely together to move the increased intermodal volumes that are expected next year. If either RR slacks off, the service will bog down just like it did last time volumes were up. Staffing, equipment and capacity shortages showed up real quick

MaineRailfan wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2024 5:05 pm I am 99% sure its just a rumor. Someone started spreading that after the CPKC Holiday Train went to Saint John last month, because you know just because CPKC sent the train to Saint John 100% means they are buying Irving's railroads without notifying the employees first or giving any sort of press release on the matter. I have talked with the employees I know, there has been no talk of anything of the sort except rumors in the railfan groups of Facebook and there has been no mention of it in any of the weekly newsletters the company puts out.

Irving wont sell, they have seen how CPKC struggles to meet demand and they know that they would never be able to match the service or price of transportation their railroad provides the other JDI divisions. Adding to that, Irving just bought a whole mess of log cars and is working to get 30 something GP31ECO rebuilds. If the railroad was truly being sold they wouldn't have just dumped money into doing all that.

NBSR was the one who struggled to keep up when they were gangbusters 2 years ago... seems they have learned this time around to ramp and be ready.

Well you are correct, Irving did struggle.

But they couldn’t move the traffic back west because CP couldn’t take it all and didn’t have the crews. Kind of like what is still happening now…

It's hard to keep the conveyor belt moving, when the middle carrier can't provide enough crews, power or empty wells to balance things out between Brownville and Saint John.

Irving is running max length trains to keep CP/CSXT going, and CP shows up hours behind (like we're witnessing now) with two units to take traffic back west, holding everything back several hours. For the record amount of containers they're moving, getting wells back east in any fashion still lags at times.

Running trains 3-4 or more hours behind the usual windows isn't helping. It wasn't Irving who had to park a train two nights ago at Gould because they weren't going to make Jackman customs by 20:00, with a train that is generally at BVJ by 17:30.

Being hours late isn't much-- delays are typically measured in days. And CP was running 132/133 pllus 222/223 (4 days on the manifest) so they kept it moving. Again, it seems the first quick ramp up was a learning moment, but both sides will agree what the issues were. Theres a reason you saw CP power make it all the way to SJ during the last pop but it seems they are now ready for this increase. From what I'm told, it will be a solid uptick in traffic in Spring, so still time yet to get more crews.

Being hours late leads to being days late due to Customs.

Some stuff in your post doesn’t add up.

As for the motive power, that lasted at best a few weeks solely because of the amount of time it was taking to replace traction motors at SJ. But yet Irving was fully able to keep up with demand. For some reason despite CP running 132/133 7 days a week and 222/223 4 days a week, westbound traffic was still getting set off every night because CP was unable to take it.
Funny how 222/223 only lasted a few months before getting cut due to manpower shortages, but yet EMR was still doing 4 trains a day at or near max length…


I wonder how many people they will be able to retain after training, which after 4 years of hiring they still have manpower issues.


As for times, CP is supposed to be at Brownville Jct by 5 PM with the train 100% ready per agreements with Irving. Yet they roll in anytime from 5PM-Midnight. Which the later they are the longer 121 has to sit somewhere waiting them. Normally meaning 121 needs a recrew to get into BVJ. Which when that happens frequently, depletes the number of spare board guys Irving has.

Sounds like they should just give up and sell it again I guess

22:30 and nothing east through Greenville again... if they can't move one train pair, good luck moving two next spring.

Good point, again, sounds like they should just pack their bags and leave. Not like they've done much for the property since the 'good ole days' when the shortlines ran everything.