The Conn River and Amtrak

[quote="johnpbarlow"]

I attended a meeting about ten years ago in Portland, which was while the Downeaster service was still just a proposal. It was stated, that the main objection of then Guilford to the service was that they would have to maintain the track conditions or might face a repeat of the Vermont situation. So far, that has not seemed to be a problem with the Downeaster. There are occasional slow orders, mostly switch issues, that are taken care of reasonably quick and in the last two years, there has been a several day "blitz" to take care of welding, rough track and the like. Of course, the Downeaster contract with GRS/PAR is likely quite specific on track standards, where that probably did not exist in the Vermont case.

In my opinion, the CV maintained the trackage better once is was rebuilt, than its successor Railtex. In turn, Rail America has not maintained the trackage to the Railtex level. Rather, they seem to wait for a Sperry inspection and then have as many as several hundred issues to address, with scores of slow orders in the meantime.

It remains to be seen how the new "investment" owners will do on track maintenance. But, the bottom line is usually anything and everything to these types of owners.

Dick

mick wrote:

johnpbarlow wrote:If somehow the P&W could get a hold of the Conn River line, the track would likely be upgraded to at least 40mph, based on its current track maintenance policies. Plus P&W would then get a larger share of the coal haul from port of PVD to Mt Tom.

If they ask nice enough maybe Dave Fink will give it to them! Or, better yet, they can get the government to take it away from ST and give it to P&W, just like CV did. That was great, take private property from an American company, and give it away to a Canadian one! And they talk about Bush destroying the Constitution. I think it was long gone before he got in !

With all due respect GRS wasn't maintaining the track to passenger train levels and they refused the "guvmints"/Amtraks offers to fix the track so instead of giving up on the then Montrealer/now Vermonter they took it away from Fink/Mellon inc in order to continue Amtrak service with CV which actually took pride in track conditions.

NRGeep wrote:

mick wrote:

johnpbarlow wrote:If somehow the P&W could get a hold of the Conn River line, the track would likely be upgraded to at least 40mph, based on its current track maintenance policies. Plus P&W would then get a larger share of the coal haul from port of PVD to Mt Tom.

If they ask nice enough maybe Dave Fink will give it to them! Or, better yet, they can get the government to take it away from ST and give it to P&W, just like CV did. That was great, take private property from an American company, and give it away to a Canadian one! And they talk about Bush destroying the Constitution. I think it was long gone before he got in !

With all due respect GRS wasn't maintaining the track to passenger train levels and they refused the "guvmints"/Amtraks offers to fix the track so instead of giving up on the then Montrealer/now Vermonter they took it away from Fink/Mellon inc in order to continue Amtrak service with CV which actually took pride in track conditions.

I'd have to agree. GRS was given many chances to create workable track and they failed to. And GRS knew what the agreement was and that the gov could take the rail and serve it up to someone who could provide the service. And with Amtrak sorta considered vital to the nations economy and security, it is subject to priority, seeing how land is not protected by the Constitution.

Well, I see