Pan Am Southern / Patriot Corridor Discussion

I suspect they need some motive power with ACSES as I’m no longer certain they’ll be getting the MEC units

PAS takeover pushed to 9/1 now.

what year??

I’m guessing it has no bearing on the ultimate birthday of the B&E, but, at the pace that NS is rehabbing the Albany Main and recruiting crews, it would seem like the Ayer IM traffic could be running on the B&A before G&W gets off the ground with PAS ops.

johnpbarlow wrote: ↑Fri May 05, 2023 2:58 pm I’m guessing it has no bearing on the ultimate birthday of the B&E, but, at the pace that NS is rehabbing the Albany Main and recruiting crews, it would seem like the Ayer IM traffic could be running on the B&A before G&W gets off the ground with PAS ops.

Is there any sign of a functional connection being installed at VO yet? Last pics I saw a few weeks ago showed brush cleared and rail dropped on the Albany main but no work on the short, oddly curved, connection track to csx mainline
Nothing moves on that route until the connection track is open

The CWR was installed towards the end of last month. No work at the actual junction yet, but it will not follow the curves of the current connection.

Expect a switch good for 30 MPH to be installed, the current hand throw one is left over from when the diamond was still around.

I would not expect anything more than 10 MPH on the connector even with new curvature. That's also assuming they set up the signals off the Selkirk branch to show better than a restricting and extend TWC right up to the home signal on the connector. It can be challenging to connect one railroad with CTC with another using TWC without any yard limits.

newpylong wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 5:47 pm PAS takeover pushed to 9/1 now.

Wow that went from 6/1 to 9/1 in the blink of an eye.

Q1: Re: NS use of trackage rights over CSX (B&A and Worcester Sub) to operate a daily pair of "premium"* intermodal/auto rack trains (not to exceed 9,000 feet), can the blue Republic trash containers and the Maersk/MSC international small cube containers used for Arrowhead trash be considered to be "intermodal"? IOW, is there any reason why the re-routed NS Intermodal trains could not haul trash containers (as 265 often does these days)? If not, then the relatively small amount of containers moving between Chicago-Ayer (60 +/- per day) could be supplemented making for longer trackage rights trains over CSX.

* Premium is the adjective used in the NSR Settlement Agreement filed with the STB as part of the CSX acquisition of Pan Am.

Q2: How separate from existing G&W operations (eg, NECR, P&W, CSOR, SLR) must B&E operations be? Today, some if not all of these RRs use common dispatching out of St Albans, I believe. And locomotives are often shared. But could B&E and P&W, for example, elect to operate a Worcester-E Deerfield run through train with a single crew? Or would both B&E and P&W crews be needed per labor agreement? Or perhaps Conn River operation between St Albans and New Haven using shared crews over NECR/PAS/CSOR? Are there any Conrail era paper barriers still in effect that preclude joint NECR/P&W/CSOR interchange (the only CSOR interchange at Springfield is with CSX while the only PAS interchange is at Berlin CT)?

Thanks.

-The trash is not "premium" regardless of car type.

-The GWI railroads will share some corporate functions and equipment as all of the other GWI RRs operate but otherwise they are separate entities. An employee of B&E can't just hop on a P&W train, etc.

Ns can fill out the intermodal on the B&A with rax
And they may be able to increase container volume with more reliable svc times

To clarify what NS means Re: “premium” IM service, currently NS premium trains haul UPS, Fed Ex, Prime, and other TOFC in addition to double stacked JBHU, EMP, Hub, etc containers. Premium IM trains have an alpha character as the 3rd digit in the train number that designates the destination pad(eg 22X UPS hotshot runs from Chicago to Croxton). Clearly 264/265, which haul primarily COFC of JBHU, EMP, and Hub, are secondary IM trains from an NS operations perspective. So given that 265 often (not always) handles Republic trash containers from Ayer to Toledo these days, I don’t see why that will change due to use of CSX trackage rights. Unless of course NS intends to start hauling UPS or FedEx IM on CSX-competitive schedules…

Makes sense that each G&W RR would have its own crews/labor agreements/seniority lists. But I wonder if NECR+B&E+CSOR could market themselves as having a “single line service” between CN interchange at Alburgh VT and Hartford/New Haven? Or CN and Worcester/Ayer/Providence? I don’t know how much traffic there is in those lanes but the G&W lines are contiguous at least.

Yes, they can market that but the fact of the matter is it won't be. Each railroad will have its own waybill/interchange and will be treated at arm's length. I expect the CP and CN gateways to be marketed much more heavily that they are today. The CN traffic is already up under the ST currently after many years of drying up.