I found, from 4.3 and 3.6 years ago in this thread,
F-Line's comments from July 2014 and Feb 2015 on MassDOT's c. 2013 purchase of the Mass. portion of the Housy (I've broken the paragraphs out for readability, and added some clarification in square-bracketed italics):
From July 2014:
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Backshophoss wrote:HRRC still has the freight rights and control? Berkshire Scenic may still be blocked by HRRC,unless there
was contract language that allows Berkshire Scenic to opreate on the trackage.
HRCC still is the freight carrier with dispatching control. But since their bannination order to BSRM may have been illegal to begin with, they don't get to pull that garbage any longer with MassDOT as the landlord. The $35M in fixes seems like it is strictly targeted at addressing HRCC-negligence safety issues that were the real reason behind the B.S. "safety issues" they banned BSRM for.
And it means when repair resources get put in the hands of HRCC through grants, there has to be an accounting to MassDOT of where it's spent. Which avoids the situation they had in CT where grants for rail and crossing repairs just "disappeared". And avoids the situation where a lot of MassDOT money spent to get BSRM back up and running in 2003 didn't even net 8 seasons of operations before HRCC punked them and track conditions sank to even more deplorable state than before that money was spent.
Shine a direct light on roaches and they scurry away. That's the main upshot. This closed shop has less leverage to bilk its partners and hide its safety violations the less miles it privately owns. And if it's operating unsafe track MassDOT now gets to personally inspect it like they do with MassCentral, Mass Coastal, Bay Colony, and the big boys operating on state-owned track and sick the FRA itself on those clowns.
Now we just need CDOT to make them an offer they can't refuse for New Milford and the Maybrook to (#1) get P&W back in the game on its preferred route to Danbury, (#2) cut out all the HRCC vs. Metro North riff-raff about emergency movements and which MNRR engineers get banned from their track because HRCC doesn't like what they write on the Internet, and (#3) secure the last of the Berkshire--and the New Milford commuter rail future considerations--under public trust so they've got no rock left to hide under at abusing their partners and abusing their state aid.
Take away the option for them to operate in secrecy while they self-sabotage to sell the road for scrap...and they'll probably bugger off and sell to another freight carrier sooner. Not soon-soon, but sooner. A little enforced transparency might make the honest sale to another carrier the more palatable option than the dishonest sale stuffing their executives' coffers while they scuttle the ship.
From February 2015:
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:CPF363 wrote:The Commonwealth of Massachusetts should have never even proceeded with the purchase of the Housatonic Railroad. Massachusetts doesn't even have the the money to purchase the line let alone spending $113 Million to support passenger trains.
No, that was a wise purchase. It prevents Housy from ever trying to scrap the railroad for salvage, permits MassDOT to conduct their own inspections and induce sanctions when Housy is lying about the condition of their track, and allows Berkshire Scenic to get back on its home rails so HRCC's trumped-up ban doesn't threaten their long-term viability.
It was an overpay, but overpay is what you do to acquire a public asset that was under imminent threat from a shady outfit. The passenger proposal [MA-CT-NYG via Housy] was a hysterical overreach, but not a dime has been spent on that other than [Governor] Deval Patrick's quixotic charter train to North Caanan a couple summers ago. Taken in isolation and de-coupled from the PR overhype about the passenger proposal the line purchase itself is just one of those 100-year considerations where you produce the money whenever the opportunity arises.
The screaming about this and [MassDOT's] CSX Framingham Secondary purchases being a such a TRAV-SHAM-OCKERY! because of budget misses the point that preservation/stabilization of active corridors pays back the investment over multiple decades (and in the latter case completely ignores the fact that it was the MassDOT mothership and not the vastly more debt-addled MBTA that made the buy and becomes the line owner).
Frankly, if CDOT has to make an overpay too for Danbury-New Milford and the Maybrook it's just as justifiable. Even if Metro North is not coming to New Milford any time soon. The sooner HRCC has to live up to being a tenant everywhere it runs the less crap they'll be able to get away with without having to answer to a higher authority. They had too many places to hide their questionable safety, questionable business practices, and misuse of grant aid all those years that only New Milford-state line had a public owner. This is now a much more preferable situation.
The above was written as the (current) Baker(R) Administration had just taken office (and struggling to keep transit running with 108 inches of snow), and refers back about 2 ~3 years to the purchase event itself, which came, IIRC, in the second half of Deval Patrick's (D) Administration (Jan 2007 - Jan 2015), as part of a big flurry of infrastructure buys/commitments that were bundled with a gas tax hike (c.2013?)