by KSmitty
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Railroad Forums
Moderator: MEC407
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:This put Keag back under the gun, or is Irving interchange traffic keeping it just a whisker above water as a viable route?Not sure what you're talking about. They havent run regular freight trains to Keag in over 9 months now. Its all going up CM&Q to Brownville.
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:What does that leave for paper traffic: Rumford, Rileys, and the Sappis in Somerset and Westbrook? They still getting Irving haulage from Woodland?Rumford, Rileys (for now) and Sappi-Skowhegan. Sappi-Westbrook ships no outbound, and does only minimal inbound chemicals. Couple switches/week if that.
newpylong wrote:Old Town was doing healthy traffic, but won't be a death knell. If Rumford or Rileys goes, the MEC is done as we know it. It took them 30 years, but they finally ran it into the ground.I'd not be surprised if Riley's is next. Verso is being delisted from the NYSE, and thats usually a precursor to bankruptcy. I'm highly doubting with their newly acquired New Page mills in warmer climates that Jay survives a Verso bankruptcy. At least not in its current capacity. This must be scary for anyone currently working for Pan Am in any capacity. The paper industry is in freefall, and its going to land on the railroads from the suits to the overalls.
eustis22 wrote:I don't think you can blame PAR for the mills going under. This is about Capital chasing the lowest possible labor/environmental expense at any cost.No, but the writing has been on the wall for the Maine paper industry for over 20 years and Billerica passed up every opportunity to attempt to diversify MEC traffic. They would've had to prune back lots of the branch network all the same, but that's a very valuable mainline route. All the near-misses and all the short-term experiments in haulage of other goods and whatnot over that span of time attest to the fact that potential customers and interchange partners still see a major asset there in a trans- New England route. But if it takes a day-and-half to get between NMJ and Rigby because they won't maintain that mainline or manage their personnel well enough to go on-time...they aren't reliable enough partners and traffic is going to continue being routed around Maine because it's not worth the trouble.
KSmitty wrote:I know they wouldn't be the originating carrier, but does PAR pick up any traffic from the Cascades recycling plant in Auburn? Or does that all stick to STL? I ask because the "official" Maine paper mill list includes it, as well as the ones listed above and Madison and Madawaska.F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:This put Keag back under the gun, or is Irving interchange traffic keeping it just a whisker above water as a viable route?Not sure what you're talking about. They havent run regular freight trains to Keag in over 9 months now. Its all going up CM&Q to Brownville.
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:What does that leave for paper traffic: Rumford, Rileys, and the Sappis in Somerset and Westbrook? They still getting Irving haulage from Woodland?Rumford, Rileys (for now) and Sappi-Skowhegan. Sappi-Westbrook ships no outbound, and does only minimal inbound chemicals. Couple switches/week if that.
newpylong wrote:Old Town was doing healthy traffic, but won't be a death knell. If Rumford or Rileys goes, the MEC is done as we know it. It took them 30 years, but they finally ran it into the ground.I'd not be surprised if Riley's is next. Verso is being delisted from the NYSE, and thats usually a precursor to bankruptcy. I'm highly doubting with their newly acquired New Page mills in warmer climates that Jay survives a Verso bankruptcy. At least not in its current capacity. This must be scary for anyone currently working for Pan Am in any capacity. The paper industry is in freefall, and its going to land on the railroads from the suits to the overalls.