"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

Have to have one anyway even it's uphill to the main.

Tnx -- guess there could be runaway power.

I wonder if the long-term plan is to switch PRL with an Old Town local crew or the mainline Keag job when it starts running again?

The Pittsfield passing track got some much needed attention recently. The PAR tie crew installed several cars of ties, before moving further west. Last I knew the surfacing gang was working out of Pittsfield, leveling out the track that the tie crew has worked on. I would expect the tie crew to finish up at Waterville in the next few weeks, since they are making good time. I would imagine the surfacing crew will head back to the NMJ-Carmel area where Pan Am has been dumping ballast over the summer on and off.

roberttosh wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 10:50 am I wonder if the long-term plan is to switch PRL with an Old Town local crew or the mainline Keag job when it starts running again?

Is there any plan or intention to restart interchange at Keag prior to the end of Pan Am Railways?

Yes.

Kudos to Pan Am!

From a strong field of submissions, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) has chosen to recognize four member railroads for excellence in business development and execution of growth strategies in partnership with customers, and local area economic development authorities.

The 2021 Business Development Award winners are: ...

Pan Am Railways - Grows Business by Reimagining Supply Chain for Nine Dragons Export
With Maine’s paper industry suffering from the shift from print to digital media, new opportunities for mills needed to be identified. Enter Pan Am’s customer Nine Dragons Paper, the largest Chinese paper exporter, including old corrugated cardboard (OCC) from America to make recycled pulp for containerboard in Asia. New Chinese purity standards on imported OCC forced Nine Dragons to develop a new plan: making recycled wood pulp from U.S. OCC and virgin fiber, involving buying four paper mills to be retrofitted for this purpose on the Pan Am line.

Pan Am realized that, with most recycling centers lacking rail service, the Nine Dragons plan would likely be achieved with trucks bringing in OCC to be processed, and then being re-filled with pulp for export. To capture that business, Pan Am needed to make the two-way balanced move work – something they were able to do through coordination with multiple companies. Moreover, a solution would need to be scalable to match Nine Dragons’ intended production of 1.5 million tons of pulp for export.

Some of the steps necessary to meet customer needs included:
• Identifying a cross dock opportunity near the Massachusetts Port Authority’s Conley Terminal, which lacked direct rail access, for outbound shipments of pulp for export.
• Finding additional land for the expansion of the purchased mills to accommodate production goals, ultimately supplied by Pan Am with the sale of land and yard at Rumford, Mass.
• Onboarding a cross-docking facility with building and track upgrades facilitated by grant money from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Industrial Rail Access Program (MassDOT IRAP), and hiring Mid-States Packaging & Distribution to operate the warehouse.
• Working alongside Nine Dragons through the plant conversions in preparation for inbound rail movement of scrap paper.

In November 2020, Pan Am moved its first return loads of scrap paper to a Nine Dragons mill. In two months that volume increased to 70 cars, and the number of incoming and outgoing shipments finally matched. This balanced move continues to grow in 2021, and Pan Am expects to handle 1500 carloads this year, with an eye toward expanding service to a warehouse near the Port of New York and New Jersey to match increased production by Nine Dragons.

http://files.aslrra.org/images/news_fil ... inners.pdf

johnpbarlow wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:17 am • Finding additional land for the expansion of the purchased mills to accommodate production goals, ultimately supplied by Pan Am with the sale of land and yard at Rumford, Mass.

Great story. That has to be Rumford, MAINE, right?

The article mentions Rumford. Also, some simple math, assuming that 1.5 million ton production reference is on an annual basis, that translates to 41, one hundred ton boxcar shipments per day, 365 days per year. If that's an accurate assessment, then that is one hell of an account for Pan Am.

In the Pan Am Facebook jungle, there’s a lot of cynicism being expressed as to if Pan Am winning this accolade is a joke.

Happened upon PORU heading up the branch this afternoon with 501-511-307 and 56 cars- mostly boxes with
two covered hoppers, a bulkhead flat loaded with steel plate and the usual string of coal hoppers for Rumford.
At Rileys they set off the two covered hoppers and 28 boxes includindg 10 RBOX. Interestingly, there were no
tank cars in the train today. Pictured is the train passing East Livermore and making the setoff at Rileys.

OT-1 had 12 loads of ballast yesterday and on the return trip from Mattawamkeag, the plan was to dump ballast on the siding as well as the switches. They got one car dumped before the second one derailed, ending the operation for the day. According to what the foreman said over the radio, the cars will be fouling the main until OT-1 goes back up to Keag next week.

Did they ever get those first loaded CB's out of Pleasant River? Also, any idea on what kind of volumes ND Paper at Old Town is shipping these days? Thanks.

CPF66 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:40 pm They got one car dumped before the second one derailed, ending the operation for the day. According to what the foreman said over the radio, the cars will be fouling the main until OT-1 goes back up to Keag next week.

This is the most Guilfordian thing I've ever read.

The center beams have been loaded for a few days, and I think the plan was to pull them after they dumped the ballast. Old Town has been spotty, currently the mill is on shutdown for maintenance, so the LTEX 1524 got sent down to the BML for servicing and a inspection. Prior to the shutdown, they were shipping about 15-20 cars a day. That includes loads and empties, but it depends on the day.