Railroad Forums
Moderator: MEC407
riffian wrote:I was wondering how the loss of these two major shippers at the same time has affected overall traffic. Any local/yard jobs abolished? How extensive was the Old Town operation in terms of traffic for PA/Guilford? Given the overall malaise in the New England paper industry, the loss of two major shippers at the same time has to seriously hurt the bottom line. Any info/speculation appreicated.It means that the Worcester Main, Ayer to Barber, now has only one daily road freight each way. That connection didn't even exist until 1990 when the covered auto racks started to be used at the facility in Ayer. They couldn't clear Hoosac at the time so Conrail and Guilford set up the arrangement for trains from the Boston Line to use the P&W Gardner Branch to get to Guilford's route to Ayer at Barber, in the northern part of Worcester. It worked out so well that the two railroad's began using it for all their freight, at the cost to the West End. At one time the Worcester main hosted two road freights each way, the rack train, Bow coal trains, and even a piggyback train. The Conrail break-up began the decline of the Barber traffic in favor of more going to NS through Mohawk on the D&H. Prior to that, Conrail didn't want to handle the coal on the Boston Line so began delivering it to Rotterdam, but that eventually went entirely to NS. The piggyback train didn't succeed. Now the racks are gone, and only one freight is left. The Worcester Main itself is plagued by slow orders so that it takes over 2 hours for trains to get from Ayer to Barber. So maybe ultimately, the Worcester Main may be a victim of the loss of the auto rack traffic.
