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As per trains.com CSX seeks to buy New England regional Pan Am Railways
A protest that strenuous by Norfolk Southern makes this highly improbable to pass muster with the STB. That much is clear-cut. Even when Class I's get up in other Class I's grills over transactions, it's usually only glancing-blow type stuff like a consequential alliance up-for-grabs...not for-the-jugular territorial fights. This is a full-on hostile entanglement, and direct threats to primary traffic lanes. The feds get easily spooked by that. They'll telegraph that they want this spat redirected to more productive ground first...but if it comes to a final showdown NS's objections are going to be very hard to ignore.As per trains.com CSX seeks to buy New England regional Pan Am Railways
Under the radar...
Apparently while working on the rehab of the Yard 21 tracks next to Sullivan, Keolis crews did some under-bridge pipe relocation on one or more of the Cambridge St./Maffa Way/Mystic Ave. overpasses to increase freight clearances to Everett Terminal via the Eastern Route and Everett Jct. freight turnouts. It is now tall enough for industry-standard Plate F (17 ft. tall) freight cars sourced via the Lowell Line and BET...up from its prior Plate E (15'9") rating.
This means New England Produce @ Everett can at long last take standard-size fridge cars for its wholesale produce. Their rail volumes have been fast declining because of national scarcity of the obsolete old shrunken-height fridge cars they were forced to take. This should enable an immediate reversal of fortunes, which is good for supermarket fruits/veggies long-term price stability in Eastern MA. Also may attract other signees to the Terminal, and sweeten the pot a little bit on Pan Am's sale price re: Port of Boston prospects.
If the Eastern Route is electrified per the Rail Vision they'd have to undercut the mainline trackbed under the Sullivan overpasses by +1.5 ft., or 19'6" total for Plate F cars under 25 kV wires. Not a big production...probably the stuff of 1 weekend shutdown and several days of staging for the shave-down, requiring no physical touches to the bridges themselves
Always the perpetual rumors of rail returning to the Charlestown autoport?
Hey, Mods, what's a photo from Philly doing in here? (Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1871) ;-)
In addition to geeking out directly on steampunk details, we can also geek out on the photo process itself, which is a Woodburytype (a crazy mashup of gelatin, lead and intaglio)--the earliest process that could capture middle tone shades.
There are rumors of a new customer coming to this branch..MassDot's "Industrial Rail Access Program", which in their words "Is a competitive state-funded public/private partnership program that provides financial assistance to eligible applicants to invest in industry-based rail infrastructure access improvement projects," just announced the 2021 recipients of grant funding. A link to a list of grant recipients is appended to this post.
Possibly the most interesting grant recipient this time around is...The city of Lawrence, which will use its $356,670 to rehab the Lowell Hill industrial track that runs from Lawrence yard to the Lawrence Industrial park (Look on Google Maps for the concentration of industry near the Lawrence Boy's and Girls club). Unlike the rest of these grants, which really only provide service to one customer, this track rehab has the potential to add multiple customers in one fell swoop.
This kind of program may seem un-sexy and could probably do with further expansion, but little differences add up over time. It also seems like a model for other state- (or even federal)-level programs that aim to increase rail's freight mode share and get trucks off the roads.
So, the T is planning on high platforms in Winchester that, word has it, would preclude freight, hence the move of the gravel run to the WR. How true this is, I am unclear.Under the radar...
Apparently while working on the rehab of the Yard 21 tracks next to Sullivan, Keolis crews did some under-bridge pipe relocation on one or more of the Cambridge St./Maffa Way/Mystic Ave. overpasses to increase freight clearances to Everett Terminal via the Eastern Route and Everett Jct. freight turnouts. It is now tall enough for industry-standard Plate F (17 ft. tall) freight cars sourced via the Lowell Line and BET...up from its prior Plate E (15'9") rating.
This means New England Produce @ Everett can at long last take standard-size fridge cars for its wholesale produce. Their rail volumes have been fast declining because of national scarcity of the obsolete old shrunken-height fridge cars they were forced to take. This should enable an immediate reversal of fortunes, which is good for supermarket fruits/veggies long-term price stability in Eastern MA. Also may attract other signees to the Terminal, and sweeten the pot a little bit on Pan Am's sale price re: Port of Boston prospects.
If the Eastern Route is electrified per the Rail Vision they'd have to undercut the mainline trackbed under the Sullivan overpasses by +1.5 ft., or 19'6" total for Plate F cars under 25 kV wires. Not a big production...probably the stuff of 1 weekend shutdown and several days of staging for the shave-down, requiring no physical touches to the bridges themselves
So, the T is planning on high platforms in Winchester that, word has it, would preclude freight, hence the move of the gravel run to the WR. How true this is, I am unclear.
Winchester (currently in limbo due to budget) will be getting a gauntlet track for freight moves.
There are rumors of a new customer coming to this branch..
Just have to wonder why everyone isn't going "Brightline" with this high-level platform situation. Just use slide-out gap-fillers on the passenger cars and end all this expensive gauntlet craziness.
The T doesn’t have a good maintenance record. A slide out mechanism seems ripe to break in useless ways.
MassDot's "Industrial Rail Access Program", which in their words "Is a competitive state-funded public/private partnership program that provides financial assistance to eligible applicants to invest in industry-based rail infrastructure access improvement projects," just announced the 2021 recipients of grant funding. A link to a list of grant recipients is appended to this post.
Possibly the most interesting grant recipient this time around is...The city of Lawrence, which will use its $356,670 to rehab the Lowell Hill industrial track that runs from Lawrence yard to the Lawrence Industrial park (Look on Google Maps for the concentration of industry near the Lawrence Boy's and Girls club). Unlike the rest of these grants, which really only provide service to one customer, this track rehab has the potential to add multiple customers in one fell swoop.
This kind of program may seem un-sexy and could probably do with further expansion, but little differences add up over time. It also seems like a model for other state- (or even federal)-level programs that aim to increase rail's freight mode share and get trucks off the roads.
- Leominster Packaging & Warehousing, Leominster -- No idea if this is going to be connected to PAS Freight Main/Fitchburg Line or CSX Fitchburg Secondary...since company HQ is at the midpoint in-between the two lines by I-190 sans rail access. If on PAS it would be served by the FI-(1?) local out of East Fitchburg; if on CSX it would be served by local B724 out of Framingham. Fitchburg Secondary has a lot of warehouses with derelict sidings, so odds favor that one. Would be a game-changer, as 1 short year ago the traffic beyond Clinton had dried up to just 2 days per week with the line past the lumber yard in Sterling looking like an abandonment-in-wait once the last Leominster pickups dropped out. But then a brand-new CSX signon in downtown Leominster instantly doubled the frequencies back to 4 days a week, and CSX has been doing a shitload of track renewal across the branch to get the (generally horrible) state-of-repair back to par. If this grant is theirs instead of PAS's the Framingham local could go back to full 5 days a week past Northborough/Clinton, an incredible and totally unforeseen turnaround.