Portland Waterfront Rail Ops (Yard 8, Intermodal, etc)

They’d probably have to demolish the old swing bridge as well, and I can think of a few groups who would probably disagree with such a prospect. There’s tons of hurdles associated with such an idea but I guess weirder things have happened.

Kind of a moot point when you can't get a big ship like that in there anyway... the eastern approach is already gone; it's not like there's any useful reason to hang on to a bridge that has been OOS for 40 years...

Reconstructing it has come up every so often to get some variety of passenger rail to the Ocean Street gateway, saw someone throw in the idea of a transload for the waterfront facilities as well if CSX doesn’t bother doing anything with the pitifully small Yard 8 intermodal “facility” (which I personally think would be a perfect transload spot for any industries on Commercial Street or on the Portland peninsula). They’d have to redo the entire swing bridge, though, which would not be cheap.

If anything, it’d be a slightly more reasonable possibility as opposed to rebuilding the B&M site/marina area for a container port. If CSX has plans to turn Rigby into an intermodal site like I’ve seen discussed here, then another facility on the north side of town would seem superfluous

This rumor bubbles to the surface every few years- I remember reading a version of it back in the period
between the bridge fire and CN's sale of the line to Emmons/SLR. While the remains of the Back Cove
trestle and swing bridge would probably need to be removed, acquisition of adjacent property might not be
necessary. This old postcard shows the GTR coal handling facility which once sat next to the trestle with the
320 foot Edward J. Lawrence ( the last of the 6 masters afloat ) unloading coal. Note the B&M plant in the
background. If this was going to happen, it would have years ago. I can't imagine such a project overcoming
nimbys, city-state-federal permitting and any of many other hurdles.

newpylong wrote:There is a wild rumor going around Billerica that with the Casco dredging CN is interested is redeveloping the old BM Baked Bean plant and the adjacent marina into a new container port. They would buy back and run the GT the whole way. I'm sure CSX would love that to happen right in their new back yard. It may prod them to do something on the Turners branch.

Sounds like someone mixed up the sugar for another white substance in the mornings coffee.
What is the channel even being dredged to?
That location hardly has enough room to fit two ship berths, let alone the amount of space needed for a terminal and a yard.
Plus you are talking about trying to put a commercial development near a large number of residential neighborhood. Which if Southern Maine wasn't already where business plans go to die, trying to stick a container port in a suburb of Portland would be as smart as shooting yourself in the crotch.
Unless you have an art gallery, coffee shop, or a store which sells nick-nacs to tourists or college students Southern Maine is a very hostile place. It will turn into a knockdown drag out court battle in addition to the public fallout. The last time a major terminal was proposed, the state ended up in a 20 year legal fight with about every advocacy group on the east coast until they cut their losses. Trying to stick a commercial port in the backyard of the donors to many of those groups, definitely wouldn't fly.
FWIW the rumor of SLR being bought out has been circulating for decades. I think you can even find traces of that if you want to dig through the achieves on this site. SLR is a dying asset, if CN truly wanted them back they probably would have done it before the traffic dried up. Pretty much the two things floating the railroad are the propane at Lewiston Jct and the Canadian side of the railroad which still has a large amount of manufacturing. Road jobs are down to just two days a week (on the US side) and I don't think the local works more than 3 days a week these days. I imagine CN would want some sort of carload traffic to float the place until the port were built as well as the needed infrastructure improvements were made. Frankly 40-60 cars twice a week I don't think would be enough to satisfy their needs.
At the same time, CN recently purchased an interest in CBNS and there have been a few ports proposed around Mulgrave/Port Hawkesbury/Point Tupper. CN also has a number of locations on the former NBEC property (Dalhousie and Miramichi) which were once home to papermills which have deep water access and are open to redevelopment with ample room for a port.

F74265A wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 7:57 am Given the space needed and the mega ships, that location in Portland doesn’t make sense to me. But who knows.

Signs have been pointing to Sydney NS and the proposal to build a massive container there. CN already has reinvested in the owner of the OOS former cn mainline to Sydney. See the CN topic thread

I don't think Sydney is the target, I know they have been looking at a lot of locations around Mulgrave/Port Hawkesbury which wouldn't involve rebuilding 50-100 miles of main line track. The other aspect of the partnership with G&W, was for a new haulage agreement. CBNS was shipping a lot of traffic via CN to NBSR, but with this partnership more of that traffic is going strictly CN.

Yes, there are competing port proposals in sydney (novaporte) and in the canso strait. It has never been clear to me why Halifax is insufficient. Relevant here, all seem significantly better options logically than that tiny spot of land in Portland.

I can't believe people actually took the time to write so much about how this rumor (which I said was wild) won't work. It's so far-fetched it's not really worthy of anything but a laugh, which is all I thought all it would get. oops

F74265A wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 11:13 am Yes, there are competing port proposals in sydney (novaporte) and in the canso strait. It has never been clear to me why Halifax is insufficient. Relevant here, all seem significantly better options logically than that tiny spot of land in Portland.

I wasn't aware they were looking at Sydney again. I know that was being considered for one back in the 90's when Sydney Steel and DEVCO were still around. Thats also back when the rail line was still 40+ MPH and wasn't washing into the ocean.

I can't imagine what container line would consider calling at both Halifax and Portland on the same voyage; containerships are so expensive to operate that the emphasis is to make as few port calls as possible to keep the ships moving. It's been frequently commented that no vessel earns money while docked at a port.

Roux Institute already owns the B&M property and has gone to the Planning Board with an ambitious site plan (and has already started removing some of the more hazardous places on the property), so I think the price has gone up beyond what CN would want to pay. Plus, the Legislature recently killed a proposal to study the reactivation of the line from Danville to Portland for passenger service, presumably allowing the prior decision to convert that stretch to a rail-banked trail to go ahead. The only use of any of that rail recently that I know of is that the marina got permission to use it to haul boats up to their winter storage site on Presumpscot St.

Personally, I hate that it's been abandoned, because I'd prefer to see Portland's economic development department trying to find industrial users for the Presumpscot St. area that would potentially want rail service, but that's a lost cause all the way around.

markhb wrote:Plus, the Legislature recently killed a proposal to study the reactivation of the line from Danville to Portland for passenger service, presumably allowing the prior decision to convert that stretch to a rail-banked trail to go ahead.

The bill to push the trail forwards and go along with the "RUAC" recommendations, LD 209, failed to advance in the senate last year and effectively died. The Berlin Subdivision is safe - for now.

In addition, it was mentioned elsewhere that SLR extended the lease for the line.

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 7:56 pm I can't imagine what container line would consider calling at both Halifax and Portland on the same voyage; containerships are so expensive to operate that the emphasis is to make as few port calls as possible to keep the ships moving. It's been frequently commented that no vessel earns money while docked at a port.

Eimskip literally does that today with sub 1000 TEU vessels…. The few port calls as possible is in fact the opposite of what they do, they try to maximize port calls within a certain routing to keep vessels as full as possible. This is especially important with 20-25000 TEU ships coming off dry dock, which make no sense to operate one single OD port pairs at 10% capacity… you need feeder ports at several stops to fill and discharge.

A number of larger lines used smaller vessels--or even barges -- to serve lower-volume ports with sort of a "last mile" connecting operation for transshipment of transatlantic containers moving via a major nearby port. Sea-Land had such an operation connecting New York with other North Atlantic ports -- in-house it was referred to as the "Jolly Trolley."

Actually, something like that might work between Portland and Halifax, but only for traffic to or from the Portland area; no potential there for rail movement.

I'm not familiar with Eimskip -- are they Danish?