end of Sunbury TOFC service

[murray83]

thought i'd pass this along that if you haven't herd by now NB Southern is ending its trailer train service from Quebec to Saint John due to the fact it just wasn't profitable to continue this service.

the TTX flats that they were useing in this service will be sold in the near future.also from the friend that told me this the 2 yellow Sunbury 38-2's will be repainted into john deere green.

i hope this won't hurt the MMA that bad traffic wise.

[sandmansays]

No great loss as far as this traffic goes Murray. I hear that it was fairly mutual that it go by the wayside anyway. The RR's wanted "X" dollars to run it in order to make a profit (as opposed to losing money) and Sunbury said it could only afford "Z" dollars for the service. Sounds like each made a sound business decision.

The flatcars wont be sold; they're only there on a carhire lease agreement or pool service agreement with TTX. I would guess that either the leasing road or TTX will absorb them back into other assignments.

[CN9634]

Sandman you seem to be quite on top of things. Can you give us an predictions or upcoming goodies for the MMA? Any more painting of locomotives in store for us railfans?

[cpf354]

No great loss as far as this traffic goes Murray. I hear that it was fairly mutual that it go by the wayside anyway. The RR's wanted "X" dollars to run it in order to make a profit (as opposed to losing money) and Sunbury said it could only afford "Z" dollars for the service. Sounds like each made a sound business decision.

The flatcars wont be sold; they're only there on a carhire lease agreement or pool service agreement with TTX. I would guess that either the leasing road or TTX will absorb them back into other assignments.

Published reports say it was due to the FDA requiring separate US customs clearances for each type of food-stuffs loaded on a single trailer for the trip through Maine. Most of the Sunbury traffic was food-stuffs. Despite concerted efforts by the Maine congressional delegation and Rail World, the FDA would not relent, and the traffic went to CN to avoid the regulation. Totally stupid. The trailers were sealed and never would have been opened in Maine, so now the business is lost.