Rockland Branch Discussion

There are videos of EDPO and AYPO in recent weeks and months that have cars of sheet steel and other steel componets and the commentator sometimes indicates that it is going to BIW in Bath ME. I don't think BIW has got any shipments by rail for some time. Comments please from posters closer to the Rockland Branch. Thanks.

If it's on EDPO or AYPO, it could just as easily be going to Casco Bay Steel in South Portland.

I'm not near the Rockland branch but there's also Cianbro fabrication in Pittsfield, Me.

Cianbro doesn't use rail service. They tried to back in the early 2000's, but the demand wasn't worth the cost of building a siding. Newport Industrial Fabrication occasionally ships/receives steel, as well as finished products by rail via the siding in East Newport (although that hasn't occurred in over 10 years). I believe the last time NIF used the siding was to ship about 100 pieces of a complex storm runoff system that was being shipped cross country to California, and than shipped to Asia. They loaded cars there for about 3 years on and off.

They have started laying track into the new building next to US 1 in West Bath.

I'm guessing BIW buys all the steel for one ship contract at a time. Steel comes to Hardings steady for a month or two and then there will be nothing for a while.

I believe that there's railroad track inside the shipyard in downtown Bath, but I don't think that there's a connection to the Rockland Branch (in years past it was underneath the Route 1 viaduct). AFAIK the Hardings plant in Brunswick is the only BIW facility with rail access.

Google Maps shows no current rail connection. It does show some old unused trackage on the plant site.

RE: Dragon Products to stop Rockland rail terminal shipments

From next year, USA-based Dragon Products plans to stop shipping cement along the Rockland South End rail line in favour of selling cement from the plant in trucks and shipping cement by rail directly to its customers. The cement plant currently sends rail cars about five miles on the line from the Thomaston plant to its dock on Rockland’s South End waterfront in Maine, where a barge is then filled and product is shipped to the Boston market.

Where are these customers in Boston? I know of a barge that goes to the facility at the end of Track 61 in Southie and another one on the Mystic Wharf Branch in Charlestown. I know it's wishful thinking to expect either of these two to actually be the ones in question but where else are these barges going that have both rail and barge access? Or am I reading this all wrong?

Maybe Tresca at Medfield Jct (Bay Colony). BCLR has been brush cutting the last two weeks.

The outfit that bought Wilmington Cement I believe plans to.

Would be nice to get something back in at the old "cement pond"!

F17 picked up 3 perlite and a whopping 12 steel cars today around noon in Brunswick.

Who gets the perlite and where?

Dicalite in Thomaston. The previous names of the company were Dicaperl and Chemrock.

https://www.dicalite.com/location/thomaston-me/

See also: https://www.dicalite.com/dicaperl/perli ... s-growing/