QB 52.32 wrote:
BandA wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 6:46 pm
Sell Worcester - SPG to MassDOT, retaining freight rights. MassDOT double-tracks & upgrades track at no cost to CSX. CSX uses the extra cash to pay down cost of buying PAR.
That's a possibility, certainly as a first step in a slower long-term plan, to the other possibility of not only purchasing the B&A CP-45 to CP-98, but also upgrading Pan Am Southern and moving (some/most of) the freight traffic off the B&A east of Springfield.
Never going to happen. Two very simple reasons: 1) CSX has no interest in paying for upgrades to Pan Am Southern, especially when they've indicated (in the STB filing as part of the PAR purchase) that they're likely to be selling off their interest in PAS sometime in the next 10-15 years. They already have enough to do upgrading the Pan Am Railways portion they're buying. 2) There's no way to get the existing traffic off of the B&A east of Springfield without a time-consuming and expensive reversal of the entire train. The connections to go both north and south from Springfield are all on the
eastern side of the crossing. CSX isn't going to build an expensive (on a bridge, and over the Connecticut River) connecting track on the western side just so they can run trains over a line owned (currently in part, and eventually completely) by someone else.
johnpbarlow wrote:Q: I have spent some time Googling the namesake for Nevins Yard with no luck - does anyone know what RR named that Framingham yard alongside the B&A and for whom? Thanks.
That's a good question. I can't find mention of yard name(s) in Framingham (Nevins or any other) in any of the B&A/NYC, PC, or CR ETTs I've looked through. It does have that name in a 1979 Conrail New England track chart, but it's not labelled in the 1976 one. It's also labeled that way on a 1970 Penn Central diagram I have of Framingham yards. I don't have any B&A/NYC track charts (only the valuation maps, and those don't have a label on the yard), but until PC, there was only one yard in Framingham (as far as the B&A/NYC was concerned - the other yards are on ex-NH lines), so there wouldn't have been a need to refer to it by a specific name other than "Framingham Yard".