Bulkhead flats heading north, where and why?

Here are a couple of photos of the modified bulkhead flats in McAdam Yard.

Good catch!! Thanks for posting, carchecker.
I'm heading up to Portage this thursday for a week of grouse hunting. Our camp is located just off of route 11 right next to the MMA's tracks. I'll see what's heading north and south out of Fort Kent these days. Those flat loads could be coming out of that area north of Ashland. Squa Pan is just south of us so we won't be able to catch any traffic out of Presque Isle.

Is there a dedicated wood job to Woodland from MNR?

JB283 wrote:Is there a dedicated wood job to Woodland from MNR?

There is a "unit wood train" that runs from Oakfield to McAdam. Though it isn't scheduled and runs only sporadically as a pure wood train with chips and round wood. There are usually some stragglers or high priority cars that get tacked on...I think the "wood train" continues to Saint John after dropping Woodlands at McAdam. But I don't know much about Woodland Branch operations to tell you how the wood moves to the mill, if in dedicated move or in mixed train with boxes and chemical cars.

There are rumors on the "RailsNB" group that the Irving Tissue and Paper Mills, as well as Woodland Pulp are looking at taking "400 cars a week" in 2014. Now how that breaks down, if that means 400 for Woodland and 400 for Saint John or 400 total split between the 2 locations I don't know. Even if its "only" 400 total cars a week thats an extra 20,000+ annually. Thats would mean a pretty well filled out 7 day/week operation and maybe an extra set of trains either way across EMRY/NBSR some days if it comes to fruition, and probably a more stable unit train move.

To bring us back to Pan Am, I've also heard rumblings that Irving would like to push fiber (chips or roundwood) at any mill thats willing to listen. Not surprising when you consider JDI is one of the largest land owners in the county...That includes mills on Pan Am lines. Riley's would be the obvious first customer, since they still get the occasional log load. The big problem as I understand it, is that the service simply isn't there, it would take to much equipment to secure reliability. If Irving is turning cars to Woodland/SJ in a weeks time PAR to Rileys is taking 2 or 3. Impractical...but might become more practical with an NMJ interchange and/or less beat-to-hell track across the system.

By the way, the unit wood jobs are spectacular, I'm admittedly a fan of the smell of pulp wood, and when its raining with 3 SD40's on the throttle pulling hard for the hill just east of Keag and a slug of 50 or 60 wood racks and chip cars in tow the smell of fresh cut fiber and diesel exhaust all gets held at ground level. The sound of pulsing EMD's assaulting the hill and the squeal of flanges fills the air. Give me a lawn chair, it doesn't get better...

KSmitty wrote: There is a "unit wood train" that runs from Oakfield to McAdam.

To bring us back to Pan Am, I've also heard rumblings that Irving would like to push fiber (chips or roundwood) at any mill thats willing to listen. Not surprising when you consider JDI is one of the largest land owners in the county...That includes mills on Pan Am lines. Riley's would be the obvious first customer, since they still get the occasional log load. The big problem as I understand it, is that the service simply isn't there, it would take to much equipment to secure reliability. If Irving is turning cars to Woodland/SJ in a weeks time PAR to Rileys is taking 2 or 3. Impractical...but might become more practical with an NMJ interchange and/or less beat-to-hell track across the system.

Wonder if Madison Paper would be interested in receiving raw log wood at their mill directly by train? If the business warrants, "maybe" this might be enough to get the Madison Branch fixed up to handle this traffic along with inbound slurry and their outbound finished paper?

Hey Smitty, the way you describe the smells and sounds of the Wood Trains sounds pretty cool! Wish i could experience it myself. My other question is, what if, EMRY gets the tracks from Brownville Jct. to NMJ, Would that make PAR think about abandoning from Keag to Bangor? And if so, do you think EMRY would try to get there hands on Lincoln Pulp & Tissue to start pushing wood and maybe throw some money into the tracks possibly entice LP&T back to rail? I mean, its a short haul from Lincoln to Mattawamkeag, so once in keag, and on the better maintained track of EMRY/NBSR shipments might move faster. Is there any chance that could happen? Been off the net for a while so i am trying to get caught up.

JB283 wrote:Hey Smitty, the way you describe the smells and sounds of the Wood Trains sounds pretty cool! Wish i could experience it myself. My other question is, what if, EMRY gets the tracks from Brownville Jct. to NMJ, Would that make PAR think about abandoning from Keag to Bangor? And if so, do you think EMRY would try to get there hands on Lincoln Pulp & Tissue to start pushing wood and maybe throw some money into the tracks possibly entice LP&T back to rail? I mean, its a short haul from Lincoln to Mattawamkeag, so once in keag, and on the better maintained track of EMRY/NBSR shipments might move faster. Is there any chance that could happen? Been off the net for a while so i am trying to get caught up.

-I think the line from Lincoln to Old Town is in jeopardy if Irving gets MM&A. The interchange would almost certainly be moved to NMJ.
-I think you'd see the line Keag to Lincoln left open to serve the mill with their 6 cars a week or whatever pitifully small count it is...But I imagine it would play out similar to Woodland, LP&T or Irving will make an offer on the 13 miles from the mill to Keag and in short time you'll see 100-200 fiber carloads a week rolling into the mill behind green and black diesels. Purely supposition, but it has precedent and I know Irving is really pushing fiber hard. I doubt much outbound product will ever rail out of the mill again, especially now that the paper machine is shuttered. As I understand it, tissue isn't particularly economical to ship by rail, being a light product where rail excels in high volume heavy haul. And they seem to have a pretty good deal with the trucking company.
-Whatever will happen with Keag to Northern Maine we will see it all play out in 2014 with the MM&A sale upcoming. If Irving gets it trackwork will need to be done at the junction, there isn't a lot of interchange space left, so they need to put some of the tracks back in to move full interchange back there. That should mean no major operational changes until track season. There are also several bidders, including Fortress (who owns FEC) and supposedly CP has tossed their hat in the ring, so it may not matter what Irving/PAR would do...

CP Huh! I thought once they pulled out back in the day that would be about the last we would see of CP in Maine. Cool! Thank you for your insight.

KSmitty wrote:-I think the line from Lincoln to Old Town is in jeopardy if Irving gets MM&A. The interchange would almost certainly be moved to NMJ.
-I think you'd see the line Keag to Lincoln left open to serve the mill with their 6 cars a week or whatever pitifully small count it is.

If Irving ends up with the MM&A and Pan Am (Maine Central Railroad) decides to close the line from Old Town to Lincoln, their interchange point with the Eastern Maine Railroad will still be made at Mattawamkeag, at least on paper. Irving's new railroad will work out a haulage agreement with the MEC to move their cars from Northern Maine Jct. to Mattawamkeag with all cars waybilled via the existing routing. The haulage agreement will include a Per Diem fee and any switching fees for each car to the MEC for handling the cars over the new routing. This will end up being the same type of agreement that B&M placed with Conrail back in 1990 when the freight was shifted away from the Rotterdam Jct. interchange to the Barber interchange in Worcester, with the cars still waybilled through Rotterdam.

KSmitty wrote:The big problem as I understand it, is that the service simply isn't there, it would take to much equipment to secure reliability. If Irving is turning cars to Woodland/SJ in a weeks time PAR to Rileys is taking 2 or 3. Impractical...but might become more practical with an NMJ interchange and/or less beat-to-hell track across the system.

But.....IF EMRY were to run unit trains unbroken down and back in a week? A huge investment indeed, however I think a lot of "this used to work, why can't it now" thinking is going on with the potential re sculpting of the railroad landscape. We might just be heading right back to 40 years ago...