The Maine Central Railroad Mountain Division

This project will not enable them to reconnect onto the rest of the Mountain Division. No Crossings are being done, so there are several gaps in the track.That will be another project. Along with rebuilding a bridge over Mallison Falls Road.

Mike

"...In this economy it is hardly worth the trip to see a new rail line that goes nowhere and does nothing."

Dang, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Mike - hold the phone! I thought the insane issue of not rebuilding crossings was resolved. So another bond issue is needed now to build the crossings???

Re: the crossings, check out this article.
http://www.keepmecurrent.com/american_j ... 002e0.html

Looks more like logging equipment that rail. But, good to see it being rebuilt. Hope there is business to support it long-term.

MikeVT wrote:Looks more like logging equipment that rail. But, good to see it being rebuilt. Hope there is business to support it long-term.

We all keep debating that here as our friend at gpcog (see post previous to yours) continues to assure us that there are in fact shippers who are committed to using the line.

Ok, now I'm totally confused. They built the track, but not the crossings... and now they're going back to cut in the crossings?

Have the sections that have been built been ballasted?

When the money runs out, what else will need to be done to connect the rebuilt section with the old main?

Cowford wrote:Ok, now I'm totally confused. They built the track, but not the crossings... and now they're going back to cut in the crossings?

Yes, in part because the crossing work was the most expensive part of it (signal systems being the most $$).

Cowford wrote:Have the sections that have been built been ballasted?

The videos posted show new track on new ballast. I think its quite likely they'll go over the track and fill and tamp in ballast as part of the contract. The statement of work was posted here earlier.

Cowford wrote:When the money runs out, what else will need to be done to connect the rebuilt section with the old main?

Not a whole lot really. I don't know exactly how far they are from "tying in" with PAR but I'm not under the impression that they were all that far off from PARs live railhead. As mentioned above there was also some bridge work that needed to get done.

The problem they're going to be facing now is that the current administration has more or less shut off the idea of bonds issues, of almost any kind, for the time being. This is true even in cases where the bonds don't exceed by any means the state's rated/normal capacity to administer or fund a normal level of debt. There are some philosophical issues involved. It remains to be seen whether or not this applies to the ever popular transportation bonds which as we all know have never failed at a referendum in Maine.

gokeefe wrote: The problem they're going to be facing now is that the current administration has more or less shut off the idea of bonds issues, of almost any kind, for the time being. This is true even in cases where the bonds don't exceed by any means the state's rated/normal capacity to administer or fund a normal level of debt. There are some philosophical issues involved. It remains to be seen whether or not this applies to the ever popular transportation bonds which as we all know have never failed at a referendum in Maine.

Fortunately, there is another option on the horizon...

gpcog wrote:

gokeefe wrote: The problem they're going to be facing now is that the current administration has more or less shut off the idea of bonds issues, of almost any kind, for the time being. This is true even in cases where the bonds don't exceed by any means the state's rated/normal capacity to administer or fund a normal level of debt. There are some philosophical issues involved. It remains to be seen whether or not this applies to the ever popular transportation bonds which as we all know have never failed at a referendum in Maine.

Fortunately, there is another option on the horizon...

LOL, gpcog, that would have made the Delphic Oracle proud.

Can you give us a timeline in general terms?

6-9 months

Ok, my version of Delphic's Oracle is still in 2.0 waiting for aan update from Microswaaft, so in the meantime...

...WHAT "other option?"

Well they must have found a loophole someplace because the crossings were not included in the original bid. And nothing has come up for bid regarding the crossings. Sneaking it in I guess.

Mike

miketrainnut wrote:Well they must have found a loophole someplace because the crossings were not included in the original bid. And nothing has come up for bid regarding the crossings. Sneaking it in I guess.

Mike

Bond issue is out. Federal grants too. Project doesn't qualify for FTA small starts because its not transit.

STAR fund loan maybe but the project doesn't have any revenues to pay back a loan with.

Maybe they're getting an IRAP (Industrial Rail Access Program) grant. Its an MDOT grant process for industrial businesses that want rail access. But that fund usually doesn't do much more than about $2-$5 million a year. Pretty sure that wouldn't cover the costs even if they got 100% of the funds grants for a year. The other issue too is that they are usually matched at about 50% by the private business. Even if there's an IRAP grant out there for $5 million I have a hard time believing there's another $5 million in private capital out there to finish off the trackwork.

That's everything I can think of.

I was of the understanding that the track rehab bid came in under expectation, so there was (will be?) some money left over from the original bond. So there are X crossings to build and, what , average $250k/crossing? Repair/redecking on that damaged bridge, connecting the rehab to the existing line, and rehabbing the existing line that leads to the pot of gold... they'll need that pot!

I may have discovered another possibility for funding while reading through the Ethan Allen thread on the Amtrak forum.

USDOT has about $500M in funds available for FY 2011 TIGER grants of which $140M are designated for rural areas. Perhaps this is what the gpcog (and MDOT?) have in mind, especially now that some of the initial work has been done by the State.

However, I would imagine that USDOT would require some pretty firm committments in the open from businesses before they would fund this project.