CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

I spoke with a customer who moved out of Beacon Falls to the old Armstrong building in West Haven for reliable rail service with CSX.

New England railfans will be shocked to see the attention to detail and dedication CSX brings to the table. As the extremes of PSR fades from Jacksonville, CSX has really stepped up their A game focusing on customers of all sizes. My time in Florida was plentiful with CSXT observations. It was very nice seeing a railroad hustle and make the xtra trips for local customers, even while facing their own chronic crew shortages. Unlike PAR these days.
Photos below were snapped 2 weeks ago around Lakeland F.L

BobbyT wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 8:50 am The strikes unfortunately caused many, many companies to stop using rail. Just in the food business alone, companies like Hannaford, Demoulas, Purity Supreme, Shaws, S&S and several others either stopped using rail for good or severely cut back and slowly faded away.

I am curious is there are any manufactured food products moving by loose car rail any more. I am sure what they do move on rail is intermodal but a grocery DC with good volume could turn box cars of items if they had service and the shipper on the other end had a rail siding....

Post 2013 on PAR seems to be bulk items. Paper, propane, sheet rock, lumber, water.
Mentioning a DC brings to mind the Raymomd NH Walmart DC. When I worked there we were supplying 45 stores and that number was constantly growing. Throw the track back in from Rockingham Jct to Raymond to dump containers or boxcars at a tranasload or sling track right across 101 to the D.C
Walmart has a separate D.C for food. It's in Lewiston M.E Perhaps a future customer for CSX.
It's not impossible.

With the rapid increase in fuel prices (gasoline has increased 25% in one week!), will companies turn to the more fuel-efficient railroad delivery?

Historically truck loads shift to rail during fuel price increases. They're already seeing it with 2022s events.
The class ones are snapping up containers like no tomorrow from the truckers. NS has taken it's embargo off of Ayer for Eastbound moves to help with port jams and now rising fuel costs.

Sometimes I watch the Fostoria Ohio railroad webcam, which shows the CSX and NS mainlines through town, and it's amazing how much intermodal traffic they're both hauling. I'd estimate that at least half of the trains I see on the webcam are container trains. Some days it seems more like two-thirds of the trains are container trains.

Things mebbe got too successful in taking trailers/containers off the road in the latter days of Conrail. Can't remember the year, but trips under 500 miles got embargoed.

GTIKING wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 9:56 pm Historically truck loads shift to rail during fuel price increases. They're already seeing it with 2022s events.
The class ones are snapping up containers like no tomorrow from the truckers. NS has taken it's embargo off of Ayer for Eastbound moves to help with port jams and now rising fuel costs.

They lifted their embargo on 22K because their is a little more crew stability on PAS to actually move the trains, not to ease port congestion. If it was their choice the trains wouldn't have been embargoed to begin with.

I thought The embargo was for the shipping lane in terms of international? Containers.
Did NS junk one of the trains since?

I’ve lost track of what the latest timeline for the acquisition is, and I can’t seem to find it with a search. It’s been a couple months since the hearing. What’s next?

Mid-April is the decision. My contacts with Keolis say CSX does not want to give us dispatching, so we will see what happens there.

Thanks newpylong. I can’t see haggling over who dispatches what being a major roadblock, surely they can work something out.

Dispatching was discussed in the hearing. CSX stated they're moving it to Jacksonville to minimize disruptions. CSX also said it plans to have 2 TOMs physically on site of Mass Dots new dispatching center being constructed. Off record this is to ensure CSXs trains run on time. What many do not know is the ironclad dispatching and freight rights agreement CSX has obtained via B&M Corp. This was done up as a condition during B&Ms sale of lines to the Commonwealth in the 70s. Csx is planning to dissolve the B&M along with 6 other Systems subsidiaries as stated in the filings. It will be interesting how the B&M Corp dispatching/rights is transferred and tailored for CSXTs needs.

GTIKING wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 11:22 pm CSX is planning to dissolve the B&M along with 6 other Systems subsidiaries as stated in the filings

Interesting to learn, Mr. King, that Chessie sees no need to maintain the myriad of predecessor corporations that Timmy considered part of his business plan.