"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

[gokeefe]

You see those all the time on I-95. Tough to deliver by railcar to customers that don't have a siding.

[newpylong]

A large amount of lumber does come out of Maine via rail despite the track conditions east of Waterville. Imagine if it was actually maintained to Class II.

[Cosakita18]

I have a feeling that unless a major rehab is done, Waterville-NMJ will be unusable for road freights within 5 years. The roadbed doesn't look any better than the Madison or Bucksport branches.

[gokeefe]

I think Pan Am is committed to that segment. I would expect it will be rehabilitated eventually.

[690]

Uh, what? The roadbed between Waterville and NMJ is in far better shape than the Bucksport Branch, and have you ever even seen the Madison Branch? Night and day difference between the Madison Branch, and Waterville-NMJ.

[bostontrainguy]

You see those all the time on I-95. Tough to deliver by railcar to customers that don't have a siding.

Yeah but that's what distribution centers are for. Also it's been tough to get truck drivers and it is a lot more attractive if you have truck driver jobs that allow them to be home every night. Lot's of help wanted advertising that touts that.

Driving south on I-95 Sunday I was passed or went past numerous trucks hauling Irving lumber. Naturally I thought to my self, "hmmm, those should be on rails." Then I thought, "well, 70 mph is better than 25." Yeah, a hell of a lot faster than a 10 mph crawl. Yikes.

Yeah but once the pipeline is full the speed at which the product gets there doesn't matter, right. If you have 50 lumber trucks going from Point A to Point B everyday, and you have a 50 car train doing the same thing, you will have your 50 loads of lumber delivered for distribution every day once the first loads arrive. There will be a delay at first, or you could even temporarily use trucks initially, but the supply will be steady either way.

Now if Pan Am can deliver the same amount of goods at half the price, it works.

[MEC407]

How long is it taking for a typical train to get from NMJ to Waterville these days? 5 hours or so?

Making the leap from 10 MPH to 25 MPH might not sound like much of an upgrade but it cuts that 5 hour trip time in half. That probably doesn't mean anything for customers of non-time-sensitive products but it makes a big difference for the railroad in terms of making crew shortages and power shortages more manageable.

I'm not sure I can think of any other regional railroads in the US that would be content with a 10 MPH mainline. Shortlines, yes. Regionals? None come to mind.

[gokeefe]

Maine Montreal & Atlantic but we all know how that ended.

Possibly Central Oregon & Pacific. I know there are some rough roads out in the Northwest which have tailed off with the decline of the forest products industry.

[MEC407]

I wouldn't say MMA was content with a 10 MPH mainline. They had high hopes and they made some significant improvements in the beginning, but they kept getting hit with major customers shutting down and other hardships. Burkhardt wanted it to be the Wisconsin Central of the northeast. That just wasn't in the cards, sadly.

[690]

Yes, it takes around five hours from Hermon to Waterville, depending on how you do climbing the hills. Of course right now it's not helped with the way interchange is set up right now, that consumes a lot of time just getting your cars in order, then you have to test them, etc. It was a lot a better when Pan Am did the interchange right at Keag, and NBSR handed off a train with power already on it, completely tested.

[guilfordrailfan]

Hopefully they go back to interchanging at Keag!

[MEC407]

That brings us to the topic of track conditions from NMJ to 'keag: I assume that's at least as rough as the stretch from NMJ to Waterville, if not worse? At 10 MPH you'd be looking at a 7 hour trip from 'keag to NMJ.

[roberttosh]

I think the difference is that there's a lot of light rail East of Bangor.

[gokeefe]

I would imagine improvements are in store at least to Old Town. Possibly as far as Lincoln if Ligna Terra builds a plant there. How many rail miles from Lincoln to Mattawamkeag?

[newpylong]

Roughly 20.