Bucksport Branch activity & news

[necr3849]

Pretty bad when they have a derailment less than nine months after they did all that tie replacement last Fall. Finish what you started comes to mind....

Anyway, they had yesterday's NM-1 come down from Northern Maine Junction and retrieve a good chunk of cars to bring back up to Calais Junction. They were definitely off that derailment since there were a couple remaining loads of slurry. Power from that previous ill-fated WABK was still stranded at the mill. It appears that crew was pretty lucky to have gotten over the problem without dumping power in the river as well. It didn't look like they got more than a couple cars past before the derailed slurry tanks found the water. Work crews were still going strong mid-afternoon on Saturday. Rail was being off-loaded around 2:30pm.

[MEC407]

Jeeze... maybe the Bucksport Branch needs to trade places with the Somerset Branch for the honor of holding the alternative name "Derailment Branch"...

[MEC407]

From today's Bangor Daily News:

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is estimating that 4,000 to 6,000 gallons of a chemical used to make coated paper spilled into the Penobscot River when several train tanker cars derailed in Bucksport on Friday.
...
Four cars in a 31-car train derailed Friday night on a stretch of Pan Am Railways track near the Bucksport/Orrington town line. There were no injuries in the incident, but at least two of the cars tumbled down the embankment and into the Penobscot River.
...
Roughly 200 feet of track had to be replaced after the derailment. Cynthia Scarano, executive vice president at Pan Am Railways, said that the track reopened to rail traffic on Monday afternoon. Now, Pan Am will have to work with the DEP and an environmental cleanup contractor to figure out the best way to remove the overturned tankers.

Read more at: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/05/28/n ... erailment/

[MEC407]

Turns out that the stuff in the river isn't kaolin after all; it's a synthetic rubber called styrene butadiene copolymer.

Updated article in today's BDN:

On Tuesday, Department of Environmental Protection officials corrected the name of the chemical suspected of leaking into the river. The chemical, called styrene butadiene copolymer, is a type of synthetic latex used to make the coated paper produced at the Verso Paper mill in Bucksport, where the train was headed at the time of the incident. The car was believed to be carrying 23,000 gallons at the time.

Read more at: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/05/29/n ... relatedBox

[gokeefe]

Turns out that the stuff in the river isn't kaolin after all; it's a synthetic rubber called styrene butadiene copolymer.

Updated article in today's BDN:

On Tuesday, Department of Environmental Protection officials corrected the name of the chemical suspected of leaking into the river. The chemical, called styrene butadiene copolymer, is a type of synthetic latex used to make the coated paper produced at the Verso Paper mill in Bucksport, where the train was headed at the time of the incident. The car was believed to be carrying 23,000 gallons at the time.

Read more at: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/05/29/n ... relatedBox

A spill of this magnitude is almost certain to lead to some kind of fine, probably in the six figure range. If as part of a consent agreement PAR is allowed to spend the money on track improvements as opposed to paying it directly to the state (assuming they also pay for cleanup costs anyways) we could see some track improvements on the Bucksport Branch.

[KSmitty]

Only sort of related, Verso's mill in MN has fire damage, apparently contained to a warehouse but is currently shut down on a "day by day" basis.
BDN Article --> http://bangordailynews.com/2012/05/31/b ... atal-fire/ <-- The title makes it out a lot worse than the article does...typical headline. Destroyed 4000 rolls of paper, thats a lot of paper to just lose, and with that mill on the disabled list, maybe Jay and Bucksport, and PAR will be called upon to pick up some slack?

[MEC407]

From The Portland Press Herald:

Public safety officials said a train has derailed in Bucksport, causing part of Route 15 to be shut down.

Dispatchers said a call came around noon Sunday that a train carrying paper products from the Verso Paper mill had gone off the tracks and the road has been shut down between the mill and Town Farm Road.

Read more at: http://www.pressherald.com/news/Train-d ... mill-.html

[newpylong]

I wonder how many they gonna have on these branches before they sink even a minor amount of money into maintenance. They are mostly 25 and 30 Timetable speed can you imagine that?

[MEC407]

Photo from WLBZ-2: http://www.wlbz2.com/images/640/360/2/a ... _photo.JPG

[jaymac]

Such a considerate car! It fell towards the road to simplify handling and didn't mess up the fencing or crossing signal.

[necr3849]

I was Downeast earlier this morning when a fellow employee of mine texted that a Pan AM train had derailed pretty much in his front yard. Around 5:30p, we saw first hand he was serious. Right across from his driveway, there was still a TTX high-cube still on its side in the ditch between River Road and the tracks. 305 had brought any cars stuck south of the derailment back to the Verso mill while the road power had taken north side cars toward Calais Junction. Local emergency folks had Route 15 blocked all the way back at the north gate at Verso while the north end detour was near Millvale Road. Only local cars could get thorugh to their houses, so many were seeing trucks and cars where they don't normally go. Whats that.....three derailmants on the Branch since the tie project last Fall? I don't know how much of a factor weather has played overall in these misfortunes, but COME ON! To think the FRA thought CSX had a bad spell!

[MEC407]

More photos at: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/29/n ... port-road/

[jr145]

I wonder how many they gonna have on these branches before they sink even a minor amount of money into maintenance. They are mostly 25 and 30 Timetable speed can you imagine that?

Especially considering that the mills are their biggest customers. Although I guess the culture of dependance is what keeps them from caring.

[MEC407]

From the Bangor Daily News:

The train that derailed early Sunday afternoon was carrying paper from Verso Paper Corp. when it went off the tracks at the intersection of Route 15, said Bill Cohen, a Verso spokesman.
...
Cohen said he couldn’t confirm how much paper was on the train, but said Verso was working with Pan Am Railways — which owns the tracks and operates the train — to assess how much product was damaged in the derailment.
...
“There have been multiple derailments on the line between the mill and Bangor, and the railroad knows how important that line is,” he said Monday. “Obviously, any time we lose product or have problems getting supplies in and out — it doesn’t matter if it’s a rail problem or a truck or anything else — it’s a concern to us.”

Read more at: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/30/n ... ref=latest

[newpylong]

Given how much praise the mills have given the railroad over improved service lately, I would think this is the last straw and the railroad will be given an ultimatum for more extensive repairs. Repairs that they don't have the time nor manpower to do right now...