"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

MEC 7609 went east from Rigby to Danville this afternoon and was identified by District 1 as "L053 ", first time I've heard one of the new local CSX symbols used on the radio.

426 with CSX468-MEC7552-CSX836-MEC5966-514 and 52 cars met RUPO with MEC305-326 and
49 cars at Leeds Junction about 1330 with RUPO waiting on the branch. PORU followed 426 with
only MEC7609, stopping at Rumford Junction in Auburn to pick up CSX2548 and MEC506 which
426 had set off in the siding. An other railfan at Rumford Jct with a scanner then detailed a rather
convoluted swap of cars with the crews each hanging on to their power- I didn't hang around to
bear witness.

PORU at Rumford Jct.

CSX dumped four slurry tanks on the ground near Leeds Junction yesterday:

Portland Press Herald wrote:WALES — Four railroad cars carrying limestone slurry derailed Monday evening in Wales near Leeds Junction, off Greene Road, officials said.
. . .
Leeds Junction Road in Wales and Greene will be closed to traffic from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday while crews work on the derailed train cars, according to a Facebook post from the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office.

Source: https://www.pressherald.com/2023/03/20/ ... -reported/

Looks like CSX has ended the Pan Am /Guilford B+M practice of using a "company wreck crew." I'm sure CSX finds it easier, safer and more efficient to use outside specialty contractors. Insurance-wise I'm sure CSX also finds it safer to use outside experts.

Per WABI TV5, ND Paper in Old Town will be shutting down for 90+ days due to low demand for pulp and high energy prices. However, many employees have been offered permanent positions at Rumford, while the other 80% or so of the work force has been told that the mill will be closed indefinitely. Seeing how several paper mills have closed in the past few months across the US, I would be surprised if ND restarted production over the summer.

Ugh, the hits just keep coming.

In possibly more positive news for a former mill site. Perhaps this will spell carloads. https://www.newscentermaine.com/article ... 44478fe5a0

It’s good to see that kind of redevelopment for a former mill. Gives a speckle of hope for all the mill closures and the future they may bring. Even if the carloads they produce are less than the mills (or if they’re not rail served at all), it’s still good for the communities to have some economic redevelopment like that.

I imagine it will end up like the Poland Springs facility, OSB mill, card board mill, and the laminated lumber facility that all were supposed to be producing materials by now. I have yet to see any of the redevelopment opportunities take form. Since it was mentioned a long time ago, the fish farm at Belfast and Bucksport are essentially dead. The company at Bucksport got some local and state funds, cleared a small swath of land and nothing has happened in two years, aside from the company fixing a sign which blew down over the winter. The earth moving company (Wardwell) ended up hauling off the gravel they trucked in as well as all of their equipment and office trailers, so I don't expect anything to happen there.
There was talk of Dead River building a joint oil and LPG facility since they have a dock as well as a tank farm nearby, so they could avoid CP's outrageous switching and transportation rates. However, I don't think CSX had any interest in the project due to how much work needed to be done to the branch. So thats why Dead River ended up buying Maine Energy. They still have to deal with CP at NMJ, but they finally have a larger propane facility which is what they have been in need of. Maine Energy was more or less forced to sell out after CP drove up their rates, to the point where they couldn't run the company with how much product they were selling. DR has a big expansion planned for their facility at NMJ and they have been complaining about the poor service and high rates to the DOT who in turn has been placing some pressure on CP. So who knows, it would be good if Irving just bought from Brownville Jct to Searsport since all the other customers are complaining of similar issues.

So what you're saying is CSX just has to offer mediocre service and they'll mop the floor with what business CP has in Maine?

None of that story makes any sense… if Dead River were feeling pinched by CP why would they choose to expand on CP when CSX is literally at the same junction? Why would they complain to the DOT and not the STB about service issues? DOT can’t do anything about rail service… CP has a consistent operating schedule to NMJ and Searsport, so that’s a head scratcher too….ST built a massive interchange backlog over the winter and consistently didn’t pull their traffic on a regular basis… wonder why some days 427 was tiny and then out of the blue it would be massive.

It seems unlikely that the Lincoln project (if it becomes a reality at all) will utilize rail in a meaningful way. They plan to source most of their woodwaste product locally / regionally and their estimated annual output is going to be ~3,000,000 gallons per year. That would equate to just 1-2 carloads per week if 100% of their product was being shipped out by rail.

That big empty space in Millinocket is still a big empty space.

A couple of times in the past few weeks I've found RUPO ( I know- I've got to learn the new
designations ! ) tied down on the branch during the day- once at Rumford around noon and
another time at West Peru about 1500 but I've also seen a WB way down in the yard at Danville
1500-1600. A week ago I saw 426 at Leeds Jct about 1030 so today when I encountered both
trains and railfans at Leeds Jct in early afternoon I was expecting to see 426 again. Instead I
saw a meet between PORU and RUPO with each crew retaining it's power while swapping
trains. Also on the ground were two prefab 136RE turnouts ready for installation to replace
the cross-over ripped up in the derailment a few weeks ago