Boston Surface Railroad: Worcester-Providence Commuter Rail

From April 2019 Worcester Telegram article:

"... [BSRR] has sold $190,000 in bonds to investors ...

/P/P/

"... Mr. Bono said investors who sign a nondisclosure agreement may obtain financial results."

Any BSRR bondholders out there able to access said financial results?

Okay, I'm trying to figure out who's running this trip.. BSRC or did Blackstone Valley Tourism Council charter directly with P&W? Nothing about this on the BSRC web site..
. . https://tourblackstone.com/event/train- ... ne-valley/
. https://tourblackstone.com/falltrainexcursion/
.

I think you are seeing an aberration of the google search - because the location of the depot in the details is 1 Depot Square, which is also the purported location of BSRC, it's showing BSRC as the "location" in the search result.

I'm guessing that.. But I've guessed wrong before. Makes me wonder then, if they aren't involved, what, if any, control or influence over rail operations at the depot do they have? This whole thing just seems to keep descending deeper into the realm of the bizarre..

Blackstone was dealing with the P&W and the STB over a "X-mas" seasonal train,
Google has been a hacker target for a long time.
'The sewage pond that is "Boston Surface RR" might wake up to "Wall street Watch Dog"(SEC) sniffing around if they have possibly
sold "Bonds" to the public!

johnpbarlow wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 5:33 am More grist for the mill - here's an article in today's Valley Breeze "Woonsocket rail developers dealing with financial troubles": http://www.valleybreeze.com/2019-08-21/ ... V5uAOhKiM8

ADMIN ADDED FAIR-USE QUOTE:
WOONSOCKET – A train company trying to bring passenger rail service to the Blackstone Valley appears to be on shaky financial footing after a series of lawsuits accused them of withholding payments from state and private entities over the past several years.

The Boston Surface Railroad Company, a startup rail company founded by entrepreneur Vincent Bono in 2012, is currently in a dispute with the Rhode Island Department of Transportation over lease payments on the train station at 1 Depot Square. The company began leasing the state-owned station in 2015 to serve as its headquarters and a future midway stop on a Providence-Worcester route.

According to court documents obtained by The Valley Breeze, a District Court judge ruled in June to award more than $8,000 in lease payments to the RIDOT after the BSRC failed to pay rent on the building between July of 2018 and April of 2019. The suit alleges the company failed to pay $1,000 per month in rent and also accuses Bono of several other violations of the lease, including living on the property, making capital improvements and subletting to tenants without RIDOT’s consent.

It’s not the first time the company has faced legal action over a failure to make payments. In February, Kun Realty, a Cumberland-based real estate company, sued the BSRC for approximately $70,000 after the company defaulted on payments related to the sale of an Arnold Street property. In 2018, a Johnston-based law firm filed a similar lawsuit against the company for failure to pay approximately $5,000 in legal fees.

Bono was on vacation and not available to discuss the issues surrounding the company this week.
...

Supposedly, this trial was to commence in Superior Court yesterday. I'll be "keeping an eye out" for any publication of the results..

If there was a hearing on the 27th, shouldn't that be public information? Does the RI courts have a docket calendar of all cases?

Came up with a few things by searching on Vincent Bona's name. Some stuff re some trust may be another Vincent Bono, who knows. Searching for business called Boston Surface Railroad comes up with nothing! Seems like the public access interface to the RI courts is deliberately unfriendly.

"Todd Stacy, one of the company’s principals" quoted in the Valley Breeze, is apparently the corporate secretary as well as the NH Registered Agent.

I keep choking on the official NH document that says they are a Massachusetts Corporation. A month after they were dissolved in Massachusetts. The registered agent in NH is probably responsible for accuracy of any NH filings. Someone should ask him about it.

October 11th.. And it appears more on the Kun Realty failure to make payments case on October 16th.. Not looking good for th' home team, eh?
. https://publicportal.courts.ri.gov/PublicPortal/

Presumably BSRR was evicted from the Woonsocket train station, and Mr. Bono either refused to leave or went back afterwards for some reason?

I imagine this is what happens when you stop paying your lawyer.

BELLY UP?!?! For now, anyway.. Ch. 11..
. .
https://www.inforuptcy.com/filings/nhbk ... ompany-inc
.
Will chapter 7 follow?

Is it legal for them to continue bond sales while in Chapter 11? Right now there is no mention of the filing on the web site and it appears they are still advertising the bonds and looking for investors. Ethically questionable at minimum.

Opportunity for someone to step in & take over that might have more success?

It's been disappointing how "opaque" BSRR has been. They've promised things & haven't met their own deadlines, then they go quiet. I think a better approach would be, "we've got these great ideas, it's a total long-shot, but if we can pull it off it'll be great. And we are a small private company that can move faster than a large government bureaucracy. We can be up & running 10 years or more faster than if we wait for government agencies, and at a much lower cost"

The question is, how much "intellectual property" have they developed, i.e. business plans & agreements & grant applications. And I guess they own one passenger locomotive that needs to be moved. How much is salvageable at this point. Have they quietly been working on stuff or just running out the clock?

The more I read about the B.S. Railroad, the more it sounds like someone's childhood fantasy run amok. Again, let's not forget that this guy was LIVING in the station. Was he cosplaying scenes from "The Station Agent"? The whole thing is stranger than fiction.

Maybe he didn't get any Lionel Trains when he was a kid.

The whole scheme is apparently small potatoes from an SEC standpoint. Otherwise they would have been stopped by now. So the only people getting hurt are the people who have given them money and shelter.