Newark America West Fitchburg

Scrap in and reprocessed out: Will Erving Paper begin the process of reconsideration, or is the practice of decades the practice of forever?

Never at Erving. RR was told don't set foot on property.

Not generally an optimist, I'd agree that the current generation of Erving leadership won't accept service, but I am an optimist when it comes to the next generation of Erving leadership. Fink 1.0 is no longer the operating system, the Pony is committed to generating and increasing on-line traffic, and other paper companies -- Seaman and now Newark America -- are doing business with PAS.

newpylong wrote:Never at Erving. RR was told don't set foot on property.

How was the service with the pre little g B&M?

newpylong wrote:Never at Erving. RR was told don't set foot on property.

I was told the same thing happened when Pan Am made an inquiry with Monadnock Paper, the owner of the paper mill in Bennington, NH on the old Hillsborough Branch. Supposedly, they were so jaded from the strikes of the mid-80s that the Pan Am rep was told to "take a hike and not come back." Of course, it would probably take lots of effort and $$ to go back to Bennington anyway as to my knowledge, there has been no service west of the quarry near Wilton, NH since the Wilton Scenic Railroad went out of business almost 10 years ago. And even then, the WSRR did not reach as far as the paper mill...

-mike

What kind of boxcar is that? Kinda looks like a guilford

Here are some quotes from the ERVING paper company's centennial history on the discontinuation of rail service. The full Centennial Book can be found here: http://www.ervingpaper.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Rail service in Erving had become problematic. In 1972, ERVING officials attended hearings in Boston before the Interstate Commerce Commission to object to plans by the beleaguered Boston & Maine (B&M) Railroad to discontinue freight service from Ayer, Massachusetts, to Rotterdam Junction, New York. The employee newsletter worried, “We could not hope to survive in this very competitive industry if this rail service were abandoned. Your company handled some 3,900 cars in 1971 and is the largest single user of the B&M on this western line.”"

"When the B&M went through bankruptcy and the Penn Central was put in control, the service on the railroad was discontinued....Guilford’s
freight trains clickety-clack their way by the ERVING plant, but are no longer of use to the company."

By Penn Central they must mean David Fink Sr (came from the PC), who along with Sydney Culliford drove this railroad into the ground.