B&M Gawking (District 2 Sightings)

Somebody asked me what became of Pan Am symbol RJJC (Rotterdam Jct - Jones Chemical (Merrimack NH)? Back in 2011 I got a few pictures of this shortish train in D3 being pulled by a single GP40-2LW and I have the impression it didn't operate daily. Was it carrying chemicals from the SI Group plant in RJ to JC's Merrimack distribution facility? Or were the inbound tank cars coming from CSX interchange at RJ? Does this traffic still exist and is simply forwarded on RJED/EDPO/NA-X? Thanks.

I am shocked to hear there was anything else up there at the time besides the road job and maybe a local.

Is this news: Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority gets a $16.8M Federal grant that funds extension of a 2 mile long siding at Wells, ME by another 6 miles?

Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority

Excerpt:

The authority will use the funds to build a six-mile-long rail extension on the Pan Am Railway’s freight line in Wells. The extension will be added to an existing two-mile side rail.

In addition to the rail extension, funds will go toward building a new passenger platform and pedestrian bridge at the Wells Transportation Center. The improvements will add capacity to meet projected increases in passenger and freight demand, and should also reduce delays that arise when freight and passenger trains must pass each other on the tracks.

johnpbarlow wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 3:14 pm Somebody asked me what became of Pan Am symbol RJJC (Rotterdam Jct - Jones Chemical (Merrimack NH)? Back in 2011 I got a few pictures of this shortish train in D3 being pulled by a single GP40-2LW and I have the impression it didn't operate daily. Was it carrying chemicals from the SI Group plant in RJ to JC's Merrimack distribution facility? Or were the inbound tank cars coming from CSX interchange at RJ? Does this traffic still exist and is simply forwarded on RJED/EDPO/NA-X? Thanks.

The train carried Chlorine to Jones Chemical to treat drinking water. Chlorine is a Toxic/Poison Inhalation Hazard commodity which requires special handling. Pan Am elected to take it a step further and run these cars in a dedicated train and move them to Jones ASAP without stopping, and only carrying a few cars as spacers between the locomotive and the chemical cars to reduce risk of anything going wrong. Chlorine is nasty stuff, and there was a derailment that resulted in fatal chlorine exposure in Graniteville, SC in 2005.

I think the cars came from the Toronto area. Last I heard these are no longer running, but I don't know why.

They are still getting a good amount of cars just not in special service. At $25,000 per train it was nothing more than a scheme to get the customer to stop using rail. Didn't work.

Would they come up on the regular Nashua-based local then? I saw some black tank cars sitting under the bridge in Concord when I was driving through last Sunday.

Yes I've been told they typically get switched Sun thru Thur.

newpylong wrote: ↑Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:04 pm They are still getting a good amount of cars just not in special service. At $25,000 per train it was nothing more than a scheme to get the customer to stop using rail. Didn't work.

There was a bit more to it than that. There were several incidents where the cars had unsecured caps on the empties resulting in evacuations of Rigby leading to that. Given the high population areas where the cars moved through, and those incidents, Pan Am decided they wanted nothing to do with moving the chlorine cars, hence the exorbitant rate charged to move them.

They were well within their right to refuse service to an unsafe shipper. And their insurance costs skyrocketed after those incidents at Rigby. So you bet they charged $25,000 for special train services. You don't fool around with TIH.

I'm not clear why Jones chlorine mts would have gone to rigby instead of rotterdam. Many of the paper mills in maine including sd warren in westbrook used lots of chlorine to process their paper products and most of if not all their mts would have gone to rigby.

Some used to come in, and go out on SLR. Loads moved under the symbol DJJC (Danville Jct.-Jones Chemical) and returned to Rigby, and Danville in with regular trains. It was these return moves that led to Rigby being evacuated because JC couldn't seem to seal them up when they were done with them.

The Right of refused Haz-Mat by the freight carrier is part of the Haz-Mat regs,Forbidden,wrong packing group,leaking boxes/drums/bottles,
any kind of pressure containers leaking or expired pressure test containers.
If the chemical handlers could not replace the seal caps on the cars right,PAR had the right to refuse the tank cars!!!!

I recalled the formation of the Key trains around the time of the Graniteville SC wreck and was unaware of the Rigby issues - so thank you for the insight.

On a similar note, does anyone remember the Hydrocyanic Acid cars we used to haul? They often were the white candy striper tanks. That was nasty stuff.

On Monday Mar 2 a local two engines and 13 cars (believe Dist. 2 called it Switcher 4) stalled just east of CPF 209 blocking the single main until Amtrak 685 cut off his engine and pulled the train into the clear on Main 2. Was this a local from Rigby? Wonder why with two locomotives it was dead?
Andy

PAR has the habit of "run'em till they DROP" style maintaince.having both units croak is "par" for the course.