Worcester/Ayer

Are there any customers on this line, or is it just a through route?

To the best of my knowledge the last GRS customer is St Gobain ( former Norton Abrasives) of Burncoat St in Worcester. Once in a great while a local hauls down in with a few open top hoppers and a very ocassional high and wide load. Other than that the line seems to be used as a through route for general freight and auto racks for Ayer. Just as a side comment, there is a rumor, CSX engineers will be qualifing to Ayer for possible intermodal trains from Maine.

Don't the CSX crews already run to Ayer?

I was in Worcester a couple weekends ago and noticed what looked like a bunch of tanker cars near a business in the area between Lincoln St. and the Greendale Mall.

Was down at the grade crossing at So. Meadow Rd. in Clinton and saw all the detectors there. Looks like a high car detector, a dragging detector, and some sort of reader. Is this a hot box or tag reader? Anybody know the Freq's? I gotta get a scanner...

KWF, Q-294 runs all the way to Ayer and return as a regular move. (Based out of West Springfield). The CSX crews on the other trains to and from Ayer (i.e Q-426 & Q-427) usually only go as far as Burncoat St.

PharmerPhil, I've beenhearing that rumor too, supposedly it is an NS van rain which will operate on CSX from Buffalo to Selkirk to Ayer and be passed-on to the Guilford crews to take to Portland.

yeah, I guess we still have a better line across the Berkshires despite Csx's defered maintainence policy. And the B&A has a tougher climb west.

Does anyone have an idea as to what times these trains would arrive in the Portland area? Or is this in the planning stage at this point.

How about the power arraingment? CSX stuff or pooling?

To clarify a little,

on that note, CSX doesn't like to use a crew on a more than 8 hours, even to serve 3 or 4 additional customers......... always crying about $$