odd ball cars

lately I've been seeing a lot of wheel cars in Waterville, ballast car both mec paint and par, and some side dump cars I know they are transporting rock but why is it almost every week there are 2 or 3wheel cars full of new wheels in Waterville? and every so often I see some side dumps go by empty and come back empty does anyone know why? it's not like pan am would want to make major track repairs or anything.

Because Waterville is still an active shop? They do a lot of contract repairs on cars, which would explain why there would be wheel sets coming in.

Also, this may be a surprise but Pan Am does do some track work on their own initiative. Not as much as should or probably needs to be done, but they're not actively going out and saying don't do any track maintenance at all. Some work does get done.

It's spring thaw. That should answer question #2 sufficiently.

thanks guys but I wish the downeaster would come to Bangor which is a long shot because the track is crap and if so the track would be better and maybe there would be more industries and more foreign power like ns or csx and that would pave the way for the cmq to run longer trains and get more money which its a win win for every one but the towns probably don't want passenger trains rolling through them and I don't know why but probably they want the maine economy to stay its crappy self.