Pan Am Southern? CT possibilities?

I am really intrigued about what NS and PAS might have in store for Connecticut. I figure there isn't alot of potential left in the loose car business between Plainville and Waterbury, but I think an intermodal facility at Cedar Hill could generate quite a bit of business.

CT has no intermodal service the moment with no terminal, but if a New Haven terminal could be served by trains from Northern New England and the Maritimes as well as from traffic from the West, I think the business would come.

Any thoughts out there?

Ed

I think they'd have a very difficult time developing any Intermodal terminals in CT. The NS can get trailers into CT over the road from North Jersey coming from both the south and west a lot faster and a lot cheaper than having to run over the CPRS and BM/PAS on what would be a very round about routing into CT. CSXT has a much better routing into CT and even they felt the economics were better going through NJ or Springfield, MA and gave up on their Cedar Hill operation years ago. Throw in the fact that Pan Am has little if any room there still that they have rights on, no double stack clearances and a busy single track passenger line that they would have to run over and I think it would be a real longshot. Something from the North like Waterville or Bangor would probably make more sense. But that is a pretty short haul (300-400 miles) and not sure what types of volumes there are in that lane. GTI tried it in the past when their service was still ok and they just could never generate that much business.

>>Any thoughts out there?

Ayuh. IIRC the NS presentation carried specific references to only two classes of freight traffic - automobiles and intermodal. This makes it all the more puzzling that their north-south trackage map runs from Long Island Sound to White River Junction.

PBM

Please see this thread for the branchline discussion already in progress...

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51529

-otto-