Steel galore at Rigby

Over the past few weeks there have been numerous flat cars loaded with steel sheets coming through Rigby. Mostly Pttx reporting marks, along with a smattering of others, even including a Drgw flat ! Are these all destined for BIW shipbuilding ? Nice to see the healthy traffic volumes resuming.

Building more Arleigh Burke destroyers maybe?

I haven't seen a whole lot of them being turned over to Maine Eastern lately (Usually less than 5 a month) ,so I think there must be some other place that takes them. I've seen the PTTX ones you're talking about, there have been alot of them at Rigby lately.

drcrf93 wrote:I haven't seen a whole lot of them being turned over to Maine Eastern lately (Usually less than 5 a month) ,so I think there must be some other place that takes them. I've seen the PTTX ones you're talking about, there have been alot of them at Rigby lately.

I don't know where they are going, but I caught a car or 2 on a Waterville bound train through Winthrop this weekend, Saturday to be exact. So I'm going to wager a guess that they are not Bath bound.

I'm probably wrong, but I think I've seen occasional flatcars with giant metal plates/sheets on the Saco Industrial Track.

KSmitty wrote:

drcrf93 wrote:I haven't seen a whole lot of them being turned over to Maine Eastern lately (Usually less than 5 a month) ,so I think there must be some other place that takes them. I've seen the PTTX ones you're talking about, there have been alot of them at Rigby lately.

I don't know where they are going, but I caught a car or 2 on a Waterville bound train through Winthrop this weekend, Saturday to be exact. So I'm going to wager a guess that they are not Bath bound.

Bath prefers to get their steel on a truck because its cheaper to get it that way.

I can't imagine a plate move in Maine of any scale destined for anywhere but BIW at Hardings.

newpylong wrote:Building more Arleigh Burke destroyers maybe?

The last (of 62) Arleigh Burkes, the USS Michael Murphy, is well advanced at Bath (to be commissioned in July), and all others are completed. However.....with the cancellation of the Zumwalt class of DDGs (DDG1000), a further 8 Arleigh Burke's (DDG113 to 120) were authorized as replacements. I'm not sure where that stands,if funded and haven't heard if a construction start date has been set.

A side note - The USS Michael Murphy is named after the Navy Seal Lieutenant who won (posthumously) the Congressional Medal of Honor in Afghanistan. His story is told in the best selling book "Lone Survivor."