PAR Schedules into and out of Rigby

Chuck Petlick's railfan page appears to be down... I am interested in what freights are departing or heading into Rigby on the B&M towards Boston and points west. Given the downeaster, I would expect most freights are running at late night into the early A.M. Can anyone give me approximate times on when freights are either leaving to head south or coming north into Rigby? Thanks..

BWP

Brooks;not sure of exact times-despite the name- its still Guilford(!!!), but have caught an eastbound out of Rigby around 10:00 AM in Portland area, and a westbound in Wells area around the same time mornings. Even though I officially retired in June, I have not railfanned much this summer.

Be prepared for a "shock" when you see Rigby!! There is a nice healthy field of grass/weeds around most of the yard tracks at east, or mid yard areas. Graphic evidence, of how little switching and "blocking"of trains is done there now!!. Plus, PAR is not spraying either, I think, but "yard action" is really dead.

Inspite of 85 years as a railyard, doesn't take "Mother Nature" long to reclaim her turf. Who knows, Rigby may be reincarnated as a "trotting Park" again!

Bud

Rigby may get a little bit busier in the future if a few developers have their way: a group of investors wants to build some kind of plant in South Portland, adjacent to Rigby. I'm not really sure what you'd call it, but it involves taking sugar beets and turning them into fuel additives, and another part of the plant would also produce electricity. The developers have stated that incoming raw materials and outgoing finished products would potentially be shipped by rail.

Gawd!! We went the "sugar beet" growing, in the late 60's and 70's up in the "county". Freddy Vahlshing, of potato and pollution fame, lost his shirt(and the State's also).

As far as I know, sugar beets, are not grown "anywhere" Maine these days.

Although NOT a "great neighborhood" near Rigby, the residents of S. Portland, and nearby "Scarbrah", will block ANY plant!

Too bad Northern New Englanders wouldn't grow some acres of hops. Seriously, saw a TV show of how there is a big shortage, and that they will grow in this climate. A-B has the huge plant in Merrimac, and big growth of local brew pubs.

Let's NOT go the "sugar beet" growing route again!

Bud

I didn't see anything about them wanting to grow the beets here; the article suggested that the beets would be brought in from elsewhere (by train?), and then processed to create products that could be added to gasoline, or used standalone as an alternative fuel.

You're right that it'll probably get shot down -- that seems to be the case with any kind of new non-retail or non-hospitality business that wants to come to the state -- but who knows, maybe this time will be different.

I know you didn't say anything 'bout the beets being grown here, but why not put the "processing plant" closer to the producing states?? This was the idea in Aroostook County. Freddie Vahlsing, already had a very successful processed potato firm(fries, tater puffs, etc), as well as a a couple of potato starch mills in the county. He'd had a little bit of trouble with the potato plant dumping waste water in the Prestile Stream, and this was in early 60's before "enviromentalism" became big.

He had to get "exemptions" to lower the water quality for the sugar beet refinery "waste water", but the Canadians began to see the effects on their river(s). The whole process also could be "smelly", especially the "pulp" left over and sold as cattle feed. Heating costs, even then, to process the sugar, was not competitive with rest of U.S. The farmers were also reluctant even to turn a small part of their acreage over to beets, dsepite the perils of the "one crop potato economy".

So, the whole deal went belly up!

I can recall the "dream"of an ethanol plant in Auburn in the mid 70's, with unit trains of"corn" from the "heartland", and
some of the "waste" could be used for animal feed; plus the unit trains would lower the price of corn feed to poultry farmers in Maine.

Bud

Bud:

I call it GRS, people can change my topic name to PAR, but the engines still say Guilford!

We are in Ocean Park, just outside of OOB this visit. Took my daughter down to the track to see the southbound Downeaster come through at 1:05 PM. It was about 5 minutes behind, then was hoping to see the Northbound, which the schedule had coming into OOB at 1:11 pm, but by 1:20 PM, it was no where to be seen or heard. It seems that based on the Downeaster Schedule, if correct, the trains should have met at the passing siding just south of Ocean Park Road/Route 5.

Also, up in Westbrook visiting friends, the SAPPI mill, in terms of rail traffic, appeared absolutely dead. The B&M side, you couldn't even see any tracks. The MEC yard looked empty. The door to the outbound dock on the B&M side was open into the plant, but nothing there. The only car in the MEC yard looked like an abandoned tank car. Weeds everywhere. The switching track that was used to service Southern Container is surprisingly still there, but big trees in the middle.

The GP distribution center on Warren Ave. has a new name, Blue Link or some such thing... It still seems like there is a decent amount of medium industry around Portland that could use rail, too bad Guilford got to take over the property as opposed to someone else.

Was hoping to catch a GRS freight through town while here... I guess only time will tell, but my odds are low as I am not going hang at the track late at night.

- BWP

It's not uncommon to see a freight train or two squeezed in between the DE's from mid morning through the mid-afternoon. By the way, the new siding at Scarborough is still not in service but am being told that it will happen by the end of the year. Signals are all up at the new Cookes crossovers but turned sideways.

Freight trains don't have schedules on almost every railroad operating in the US and Canada, so the answer to the question is "there aren't any". The Downeaster has a schedule though, which can be found on-line either on the Amtrak site or the NNEPRA site.
As for "what's in a name", in March of 2006 Guilford Rail System became Pan Am Railways. Despite the fact that only a few locomotives have been repainted, as opposed to dozens of box cars, the company does bussiness under that name, and so it should properly be referred to as such. Personally, I hate the name and find it irrelevant now that they quit the airline bussiness, but it is what it is.

cpf354 wrote:Freight trains don't have schedules on almost every railroad operating in the US and Canada, so the answer to the question is "there aren't any".

One big exception to this is the Florida East Coast which has every through freight train in a schedule and their on time
performance is probably better than Amtrak's is here in Fort Lauderdale. The local freights also have an operating plan
although I would not say that they operate on a scheule, their times depend on their local work. Three FEC locals and yard
jobs work out of Fort Lauderdale.
Guilford is in the same situation that a lot of other railroads find themselves in, operations depend on connections from
other railroads, crew and power availability and sometimes other factors as well. A railroad has to have a very high
performance physical plant and good equipment among other things in order to have a schedule operation especially when
crew districts are in some cases well in excess of 300 miles and the line is for the most part single track. At this point in
time Guilford probably does not have a physical plant that would permit reliable scheduling of their road freight trains.
Noel Weaver

wolfmom69 wrote:Brooks;not sure of exact times-despite the name- its still Guilford(!!!), but have caught an eastbound out of Rigby around 10:00 AM in Portland area, and a westbound in Wells area around the same time mornings. Even though I officially retired in June, I have not railfanned much this summer.

Be prepared for a "shock" when you see Rigby!! There is a nice healthy field of grass/weeds around most of the yard tracks at east, or mid yard areas. Graphic evidence, of how little switching and "blocking"of trains is done there now!!. Plus, PAR is not spraying either, I think, but "yard action" is really dead.

Inspite of 85 years as a railyard, doesn't take "Mother Nature" long to reclaim her turf. Who knows, Rigby may be reincarnated as a "trotting Park" again!

Bud

yeah the past couple months the action has really really slowed up its starting to be real anoying haha planing out a day around going to rigby and i get disapointed to see like 2 or 3 engines idiling and no people in sight haha