CSX Track Upgrades & Infrastructure of Pan Am

My understanding which is about as limited as they come at the moment is that they will seek to make a Rigby to NMJ job (and back) that is 3 sided, then run NMJ to Keag as a turn job (not sure frequency or number of crews involved).

The other thing to consider is that there is still a ton of 10 MPH running between Royal Junction and Waterville. I don't have any hard data (no more access to Temporary Speed Restrictions) but from the videos I have seen there is a lot of crap track still to be worked on before transit speeds can really come up.

For what it's worth, assuming an average speed of 20MPH start-stop on the 25 MPH sections of track (that includes acceleration and deceleration), Waterville-Keag is about a 6-1/2 hour trip each way, so a round trip inside of 12 hours isn't really possible. A Rigby-Waterville-NMJ trip would be about 7-8 hours one way (plus switching), so making that a one day up/one day back operation is reasonable, with a separate train making the 4-hour trip each way between NMJ and Keag.

If we call it a 135ish mile trip from Rigby to NMJ, that should be do-able in 9-10 hours... but you bring up a good point on switching at WTVL, you'd have to have your blocking done very efficiently on both ends. If NBSR is handed you soup, then you'll never make the run properly and end up dragging a bunch of stuff to Rigby to reblock. Then again, thats what they do now with some NMJ-Waterville traffic being pulled to Rigby to be re-switched to go back up to Waterville....if they're fine doing that then the block swapping will go easy but cycle times may suffer a bit.

CSX has been advertising Freight Conductor positions in Waterville and Portland since early Sept.

From MaineDOT:

MaineDOT wrote:The Maine Department of Transportation and CSX are working to make safety improvements and improve track conditions at a railroad crossing on River Road in Benton and Clinton. This project will result in a safer crossing for vehicles. MaineDOT worked with CSX to secure Federal Highway Administration grant funding to help support these safety improvements.

This work will require the closure of River Road at the railroad crossing located north of Pleasant Drive in Benton from 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 21st until 5:00 a.m. on Monday, October 23rd. Vehicle traffic will be detoured over Route 100, Route 201, and Route 23.

RJ Corman crews have been building track panels in downtown Auburn this week in preparation for replacing all the crossings next week.

From Winn to Keag is yard limits they probably just did what they could to get Irving in the yard and are focusing south of there. I'm sure they'll come back to it.

Picture attached shows a new wayside signal enclosure installed recently at CP Graniteville. As can be seen conduit stub is covered with duct tape so installation is not complete. An identical setup is at CP Westford. Also "shark fin" antennas pointing east and west along the tracks on the original bungalow.

District 2 was cutover to the CSX dispatch system today. Since District 1 was already there that means the whole ex-PAR system is now on the CSX dispatching system.

B&E will happen as well at some point as CSX is responsible for supplying their software somehow.

How will this affect the existing frequencies?

Have any of them changed in District 1? If not, I suspect no changes in 2 either.,

A new detector has been installed at
Heath Street (Russ Crossing) in Newton, NH.