St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad (SLR/SLQ)

Berlin switcher is a day job, but there isn't much work, so not sure if they work a full day.

Through freights run at night, usually meeting in Berlin anywhere between 2300 and 0300.
Don't run Wed-Sat or Sun nights as a general rule. May be annulled or called as an extra
as required.

Ok, the old 393/394 is running four nights/week. And there's a Berlin local (I assume 5 days/week). What other jobs are there? Portland? S Paris? Lewiston-Auburn?

The only other 2 jobs on the US side are 512 and 515. Both run out of Lewiston Jct. 512 works days and if there is enough work, and extra (513 Extra) is called. 515 works overnights (3rd trick) and does most of the Safe Handling work.

Again, this might have changed in the last few weeks.

A few tidbits:

Not new but afaik hasn't been reported: SLR MOW equipment has had the reporting marks changed from SLRX to SLR, with the "x" painted out.

Fore River Warehouse on the Lewiston/Auburn Branch has not received boxcars for many months. Used to be reliable to see a half dozen or more there at one time, mostly (if not all) loads of paper in Guilford and MMA cars. This was in fact the first place I saw the State Of Maine MMA 1 boxcar.

New England Feeds (also located on the L/A Branch close by) appears to be closed or not using rail. A stop by tonight showed no cars, the siding heavily overgrown with weeds, and what appears to be a barrier erected across the tracks at the switch. This used to be a reliable customer requiring many covered hoppers of feed. It has been around since Grand Trunk days, even back when grain came in boxcars and had to shovelled out by hand.

-Alan S.

SLR had a wreck in Gilead today, 9 cars on the ground account heat kink according to WCSH6 news.

From WMTW-8:

State police said 19 cars derailed, including 11 tankers carrying hazardous materials like sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid and liquid petroleum.

More details:

http://www.wmtw.com/news/20412666/detail.html

GILEAD, Maine -- A St. Lawrence & Atlantic train derailed early Saturday afternoon in Gilead, prompting evacuations and the closure of Route 2 from Route 5 to North Road. State police and the Oxford County Sheriff's Department were called to the scene. No injuries were reported, but state police said they evacuated a mile-and-a-half radius surrounding the scene. That was later reduced to a half-mile.

http://www.wgme.com/newsroom/top_storie ... _401.shtml

Train Derails In Gilead
Traffic is moving again along Route 2 in western Maine, following yesterday's train derailment. Nineteen cars on the St. Lawrence and Atlantic train went off the tracks in the town of Gilead.

A friend who works close with the SLR told me 22 cars so far, I guess it keeps climbing, they thought 16-18 at first. I have a few pictures that I took when I drove by it. There are about 4-5 Maine State police there, there not letting you get close to it at all or take pictures. I tried to take some pictures from a ways away and I was told quote "to take me and my camera and walk back to my car" after 3 state police came running after me I was on vacation when this all happened and was trying to catch 393 but the whole thing back fired. They closed Route 2 from Gorham, NH to Gilead, ME until about 10:00 PM that night. All traffic was routed down Route 113 to Fryeburg and Route 16 to Conway. A friend told me that he drove down around 8:00 PM tonight and RJ Corman crews have arrived an d even more state police and Route 2 was one lane traffic for a while. SLR thinks 2-3 weeks before it is all cleaned up.

If it will be a couple weeks before the line re-opens, will there be alternate routing, and if so where?

They should be open tomorrow or wednesday I think. There may still be cars to repair or scrap at the site, but they will get the line open again.

Funny how the news will twist things. Most likely what they were told was clean up would take a couple of weeks. They never asked when the line would re-open. Push the cars out of the way, fix the track and get them rolling again, That's the railroad way. Cleanup between trains.
Mike

miketrainnut wrote:Funny how the news will twist things. Most likely what they were told was clean up would take a couple of weeks. They never asked when the line would re-open. Push the cars out of the way, fix the track and get them rolling again, That's the railroad way. Cleanup between trains.
Mike

Exactly, should be open today or tomorrow. The cleanup will take much longer. I don't know if anybody saw the Bangor Daily News but they had a small article. They said that only 8 cars had derailed.

How about a N. Conway to Montreal excursion?

Ever since SLR borrowed a couple CNL coaches for the Gorham Historical Society, this has been running through my mind! So what are the problems and hurdles in the way of this?

Destination exporail?

I will be up in the Berlin area tomorrow thru saturday and was wondering if things are running normal again after the derailment or if I will beable to see 394/393 during the day ? I was also wondering if they are still renting cn power ? Thanks inadvance !

Does anyone know if the line is back in service yet? It was VERY quiet on 8/26 when I was at Lewiston/Danville Jct. I thought there would at least be a switcher or local. Thanks.

Yes, the line is open, and has been since the second day after the derailment.
You have to be pretty lucky to catch anything around DJ now. ST trains come
and go irregularly, due to track work and crappy over-the-road time.

SLR jobs spend an hour or two sorting interchange and take it to Lewiston Jct.
Traffic is WAY down.