Equipment Sale

CSX is selling off a number of pieces of equipment at Waterville, including the two 110 ton highway wreck cranes, the exB&M 130 ton wreck crane, the 200 ton Bridge and Building Dept. crane at Old Town and a number of assorted pieces of track equipment.

It sounds like quite a few of the loaders and grapple trucks are being sold off as well, and several of the 500's are up for grabs too. So far I have only been able to find the track and wreck equipment on gov planet.

https://www.govplanet.com/Rail+Equipmen ... SA-ME&mf=1

What kind of shape are the things that they're selling off in? Is this mostly items that would be going to scrap, or do they simply think it's cheaper to put in a call to Hulcher/RJ Corman/etc. if/when services are needed rather than maintain the equipment themselves?

In that list besides the 2009 tie crane everything is 24 to 40 years old. Besides getting parts for, nowadays equipment like that has to be certified (including operators) periodically. In the long run it's probably cheaper to have specialty contractors available.

Those cranes will go for a lot, despite being 30+ years old they sometimes go for more than what they originally sold for. Plus anything pre-emissions is another big selling point. Its odd that CSX decided to sell them, considering that they excluded them from the B&E transaction and had them hauled to Maine. Plus they dumped a bunch of money into them around the same time. In the long run, using those to clean up the small derailments is a whole lot cheaper than calling Corman in.

As for the track equipment, most of that equipment is pretty beat. Although the tamper and the tie inserter will probably get picked up by RELAM who will rebuild them from the frame up and will resell them. CMQ did that with a ton of former BAR equipment MMA left behind. And CP did that with a bunch of the old track equipment at Brownville Jct. that CMQ was using for parts.

Harsco will probably buy that Mark IV back, I think Pan Am bought that around 2017 as a rebuilt model. Those things go for big money.

The 200 ton B&B crane will probably get rebuilt as well by an equipment firm. The boom needs to be replaced since it has crumpled. The road master for east of Old Town had the smart idea of stabbing a stubborn beaver dam with the boom, after attempts to clear it with the clamshell bucket failed. The PTM Idler flat is going to RMNE I believe, since it came from the PTM crane they own. The other PTM crane which got scrapped a few years ago, had the boom salvaged to replaced the destroyed one on the crane at Old Town, however the sale got in the way of that project. But going back to my previous statement, these cranes are sought after by Class 1's. There is a company in Ohio which rebuilds them with an updated power pack and propulsion system, hydraulic disk brakes (for when its moving under its own power), as well as converting the winches and such to a hydraulic system with hydraulic brakes.

It depends on how big the wreck is. Small stuff where you don't need cranes it's cheaper to do it in house. The large pileups are usually more economical to contract out. Remember these guys you have to pull for days on end to deal with a big derailment are taken off what their day to day jobs are. There isn't 20 guys sitting around dedicated to cleaning up wrecks.

So there are lots of these associated indirect costs with derailments that add up. They have the numbers to know what makes sense for this Division.

Typically I have only seen them use these cranes on the smaller derailments anyway. Such as the one in Winslow a few years ago when the last car on the Augusta job derailed and one of the trucks came out from under the car. In a case like that, it would be cheaper to use an inhouse crane to fix the derailment, vs. pay for a full RJ Corman mobilization.
But yet again, I think CSX eliminated all inhouse derailment equipment during the start of the PSR phase. I am sure someone at Jacksonville thought it would be cheaper based on a spreadsheet, just as long as they don't actually have a derailment.

If it looks cheaper on a spreadsheet it's because it's cheaper. The data to back that up - average number of derailments, clean up costs, service hours lost, all that stuff would be factored into any decision.

That said, they absolutely do handle some derailments in house (system wide not the MEC) but it all depends on severity and location. Very few railroads still have their own wrecking crews and that was the case decades prior to PSR. They are unrelated.

One of the big reasons Guilford and then Pan Am retained their predecessor equipment is frankly because none of the contractors would jump when Billerica said jump. They were scared of being stiffed on the cleanup bill. It's the same reason they constantly were using different hotels and cab companies.

I am well aware that railroads still clean up their own derailments. What I was referring to derailments which are in-between being considered as minor and a major derailment. That is what mainly, I saw the road cranes being used for, while the wreck trains were called in for the large derailments. CSX and every other Class 1 which still had road cranes pre-PSR. Once the bean counters got involved, the maintenance costs got viewed as unneeded overhead. Which yes, on paper it saves money. However, the cost savings are quickly tossed out the window when you have to write a six figure check for Corman to clean up a derailment, which would have just been fuel and wages, had the road cranes been available. Plus the road cranes typically only involve an operator, plus 1-2 rigging guys. Whereas a callout to Corman, you are talking a minimum of one machine, two tractor trailers, multiple pick ups and 6-8 guys. And that's on top of the MOW guys who are on the site anyway to fix the track once the derailment is cleared. CN still handles most of their minor and midlevel derailments, because they have realized that they aren't saving money by using contractors for those.

Cost cutting which works on a spreadsheet, isn't just limited to derailment clean ups. Go back and watch mow personnel testify to congress and other government agencies over the last year, regarding the cuts to preventative maintenance. It saves money in the short term, but long term it costs more when something goes wrong.

To address your final point, as part of that, it was always my understanding that Pan Am didn't use contractors, because they didn't want to pay the premium rates they charged. Which when you have a major derailment blocking a busy main line, having a contractor work 24/7 on the clean up until the line is open makes sense. But I can see if there was a derailment on a main which sees 6-10 trains a week, I can see where it would make sense to them to clean it up inhouse depending on the size of the derailment.

It sounds like you have it all figured out.

Hard to evaluate from the outside. Perhaps they pay high rates for each time it hires a wreck crew or perhaps they have a term contract that provides favorable pricing on wreck clean ups. No way to know as an outsider

When I was on the wreck train one of numerous times I asked the GM why we kept doing it in-house with equipment from the great depression. The answer I was told was just what I gave above. Yes they didn't want to pay, and no one outside would do the work because there was the expectation that they wouldn't pay.

I meant we have no idea what csx’s, not pan ams, calculus is as outsiders. You clearly have a lot of great first hand info on the guilford operation

newpylong wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2024 2:58 pm It sounds like you have it all figured out.

If only CSX management monitored this forum they could save so much money on derailments with the museum artifacts they inherited from Pan Am. What fools those folks are down in Jacksonville.

CPF66 wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 7:26 am several of the 500's are up for grabs too.

https://www.govplanet.com/Rail+Equipmen ... SA-ME&mf=1

Post on the facebook group today reports MEC 350, 509 and 510 have been sold. Either LTEX or possibly metro east, though if I had to guess they're going to Larry's.