"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

Just wanted to note here that the tracks in Winthrop look better than I have ever seen them. Nice deep ballast, lots and lots of new ties. Clearly being kept up very well at present.

Bet it's still 10, though.

Oakfield yard filled with lots of chip and log cars plus other general merchandise cars. Where is all of this business coming from? Also, not familiar with train activity in this area, why are they in Oakfield and not in NMJ or other destination?

fromway wrote:Oakfield yard filled with lots of chip and log cars plus other general merchandise cars. Where is all of this business coming from? Also, not familiar with train activity in this area, why are they in Oakfield and not in NMJ or other destination?

Had no idea where Oakfield even was. Looks like that's NBSR (MNR) territory.

fromway wrote:Oakfield yard filled with lots of chip and log cars plus other general merchandise cars. Where is all of this business coming from? Also, not familiar with train activity in this area, why are they in Oakfield and not in NMJ or other destination?

There's still log and chip loading facilities up in the County, as well as several lumber/OSB mills/reloads and the paper mill at Madawaska still ships and receives cars. There's also the MCCain facility (cooking oil), some feed/fertilizer traffic and some other odds and ends like scrap metal and LPG on the branchline network between Houlton and Presque Isle. I think most of the fiber heads to Woodland and Saint John, with some also heading South to the Pan Am mills. Business is up substantially over what MMA used to handle on these lines just a few years back.

Really, this belongs on the CMQ forum in the MNR thread...And those are pretty broad questions to answer with any real definition.

fromway wrote:Oakfield yard filled with lots of chip and log cars plus other general merchandise cars. Where is all of this business coming from?

Chips are going to Woodland or Saint John, mostly.
Logs are going to Woodland, Saint John, Sappi (Skowhegan), mostly.
General Merchandise is a HUGE category, and Robert did a great job outlining those. Keep in mind MNR is a common carrier, and fulfills those obligations, but it is also an integral part of Irving's supply line. It provides service to things like Cavendish Agriculture, Irving Lumber in Ashland, Irving Woodlands (who loads many of those log/chip cars), and other Irving subsidiaries in the county, while NBSR/EMRY works similarly in and between Brownville and Saint John (serving Irving's tissue mill, paper mill, and wallboard plant, for example.).

fromway wrote:Also, not familiar with train activity in this area, why are they in Oakfield and not in NMJ or other destination?

I don't mean to offend, but that question is like saying "I drove by Rigby today and I saw lots of railcars, why are they there instead of somewhere else?" Oakfield is Maine Northern's primary yard. They sort all traffic for Aroostook county destinations there, the Houlton Branch, the Presque Isle cluster and all points on the main line northward. They build and block all southbounds, for drops on the line from Oakfield to Brownville and Saint John. They do not have access to NMJ, and Brownville is a CMQ yard that is much to small to handle the work done in Oakfield even if Irving did have free range. It's the major yard on the north/west end of the Irving system and as such its impossible to outline why a series of cars are there, other than to say "its a rail yard, that's where cars sit." If you had a specific car number it could be traced and a specific destination and/or origination point could be identified, but to try and answer for every car in the yard is a much to broak question.

Photos by Mike Young:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=540028" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=540034" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

At the east leg of the wye at the west end of yard 8, there appears to be a car on the ground fouling the wye. This has trapped an engine and a couple of cars in yard 8, on the new trackage.
It's been there since Tuesday afternoon.

S

New track and derailed already? Must have picked a switch or something.

Sorry, I wasn't clear in my previous post. The derailment occurred on existing switch heading into Merrill's terminal. It prevented the train in yard 8 from getting by on the wye.
I think it has been cleared.
The new track looks great!
S

8.6.15, 5:30 pm. PORU heading east, train included 3-NS high side gons loaded with what appeared to be mulch.
S

hh660 wrote:8.6.15, 5:30 pm. PORU heading east, train included 3-NS high side gons loaded with what appeared to be mulch.
S

Those are "chocolate chips," old ties they chip at Keag and ship down to Rumford for the boilers at the mill. Rumford also burns shredded tires and coal. When you drive through town, you can feel your lungs turning black...

Thanks. How do they unload those cars?
S

hh660 wrote:Thanks. How do they unload those cars?
S

That im not sure, the coal cars are bottom dumps, and they have a shed with conveyor for them. Chips and tires I assume are unloaded with an excavator, but they may have a vacuum system.

MEC 513 was at Rigby sitting on a flatcar last evening. In addition to the trucks being removed, it looked like the number boards and possibly the headlights had been removed for the trip. Around 7:30pm, a west end switcher was pulling the track to swing the cars over to the B&M side of the yard. No idea when it will eventually head for points west.