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

I believe they get switched at least a couple times a week.

I went through the area about 2 weeks ago and there were a few cars sitting there. Don't know
how long they had been there.

Looks like its a long term customer,last week a Pan Am crew was replacing ties on the track leading up to the facility

Are these cars coming from Irving?

fogg1703 wrote:Are these cars coming from Irving?

Not sure, but there have been a lot of LPG cars lately on both SEPO and EDPO, so maybe not. Lots of unused Pan Am rail sidings at LPG facilities in Maine, so hopefully with the domestic producers becoming more competitive, some of these places will start getting cars again. Just off the top of my head, there's one or two places on the Mountain Division, one on the branch at Deering Jct, one in Lewiston, one at Wells Beach, one in Augusta and one at Northern Maine Jct. Maybe some of those places are gone now, but there are probably others I'm missing as well.

There are/were 3 in the NMJ area, Suburban and Dead River and Pine Tree. One is on the west end, pretty much across from the western most PAR yard track. The second is down by the old BAR station, now serving as PAR's yard office, on the interchange track, I think both MMA and PAR can serve. The third is on the MMA up by the Cold Brook rd. crossing. This one is very busy. There is also a 4th, on MMA down the track a few miles in Hampden. Quite an area for LP.

The propane place in Wells hasn't had rail service in several years. Would be nice to see that change. Wells has been pretty dead, in terms of rail freight, ever since Spencer Press left.

(note: merging this thread with the existing thread on the same subject)

If the trend to increase rail LPG shipments continues in the Northeast look for a larger market share for all railroads in Northern New England. There is a lot of potential in the Northeast Kingdom as well and NH and ME for increased rail usage. Lets hope this continues.

Gas guy (no pun intended) on the Conn River that built another track to get around Guilford (and use NECR) might be using PAR for rail again in the near future.

markhb wrote:Now if PanAm could only see value in extending their line to the east, to the under-reconstruction container port at the former Scotia Prince terminal.

Looking at the satellite, it looks like the tracks are still there although in need of a bit of work. Who owns those tracks?

Word is that this LPG facility is in fact going to become a major rail supplied terminal, good news for Pan Am and certainly nice to see some rail activity back on Commercial street.

There were 4 LPG tankcars at the Commercial St facility the other day and while it does look like the line was safety tied, if this is going to remain a busy customer as I'm hearing, it will definitely need some more work. There were also 4 LPG Tankcars at the former piggyback yard at the west end of Rigby where they have a customer that has been transloading there for some time. There's an LPG dealer right up the street on Pleasant Hill Rd so perhaps it's for them?

bostontrainguy wrote:

markhb wrote:Now if PanAm could only see value in extending their line to the east, to the under-reconstruction container port at the former Scotia Prince terminal.

Looking at the satellite, it looks like the tracks are still there although in need of a bit of work. Who owns those tracks?

AFAIK all the tracks are still owned by Portland Terminal Co. PTR (I think that's the reporting mark) also still owns a good-sized chunk of land (not sure if it was originally part of Yard 1 or Yard 8) immediately west of the Casco Bay Bridge footprint and the container port tarmac, so if they wanted to run a spur onto the port facility they wouldn't have any intervening land ownership issues. An MDOT rep once told me that they'd be happy to have rail service to the container port if PanAm were to approach them about it, which implies to me that PAR hasn't gotten enough nibbles from potential container shippers to make it worthwhile to run a line there.

markhb wrote:

bostontrainguy wrote:

markhb wrote:Now if PanAm could only see value in extending their line to the east, to the under-reconstruction container port at the former Scotia Prince terminal.

Looking at the satellite, it looks like the tracks are still there although in need of a bit of work. Who owns those tracks?

AFAIK all the tracks are still owned by Portland Terminal Co. PTR (I think that's the reporting mark) also still owns a good-sized chunk of land (not sure if it was originally part of Yard 1 or Yard 8) immediately west of the Casco Bay Bridge footprint and the container port tarmac, so if they wanted to run a spur onto the port facility they wouldn't have any intervening land ownership issues. An MDOT rep once told me that they'd be happy to have rail service to the container port if PanAm were to approach them about it, which implies to me that PAR hasn't gotten enough nibbles from potential container shippers to make it worthwhile to run a line there.

This is what Wikipedia says:
PTM was acquired by Guilford Transportation Industries in 1981 and continues as a subsidiary of Pan Am Railways.

From today's Portland Press Herald:

The Portland Press Herald wrote:A large-scale boat yard could bring new life to a largely vacant part of Portland's waterfront and put the city on the map as a place to repair pleasure and commercial boats, says the businessman who wants to build it.

Phineas Sprague Jr., president of Portland Yacht Services, met with city officials about two weeks ago to discuss his plan for Canal Landing at 40 West Commercial St.
...
Sprague said he has a purchase-and-sale agreement with Pan Am Railways for about 14 acres and has come to terms on a lease agreement with Unitil, the natural gas company, for an additional 2 acres that are now fenced in and used to store propane tanks.
...
The site is across from Graybar Distributors on a half-mile stretch of Commercial Street, between Benny's Fried Clams and the Casco Bay Bridge.

Read more at: http://www.pressherald.com/news/sprague ... 08-24.html