CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

So I'm going to go full blown amateur analyst on this one. NS is the logical choice, and I'd suspect they will at least try and shore up PAS, if nothing else. Then you get east of Ayer and you can certainly make a case that NS would want to eventually spend the cash to be a third competitor in the Maritime Provinces. CP may want to protect what they just purchased into as well and make a bid to keep NS from getting to NMJ directly. In fact, CP could get even more of their Moosehead purchase by accessing Jay, Rumford, Waterville, and Portland from the north. Interesting times in New England railroading for sure!

Another thought - Currently most of the traffic coming off the NBSR for Pan Am stays on Pan Am from what I understand. It's wall board and lumber for New England and logs for Maine mills. If PAS went to NS, much of that traffic could be moved alternatively over other gateways and lines such as VRS, NECR, P&W, etc.

What kind of money do you suppose we're talking about? I guess you could value east of Ayer around half or less of the PAS portion. Also I wonder if Mr Mellon is anticipating needing the cash to support his other businesses or if this has been in the works for a while.

I could see CP buying out PAR's half of PAS as CP and NS have been joined at the hip in the Northeast for quite some time - and they already connect at XO and Mohawk, etc. That would give them a reasonably priced southern gateway into New England with a contiguous system map.

NBSR getting down to say Portland?

Someone else (Watco?, G&W?) aquiring from Ayer to Portland?

Who knows, but it could get interesting.

CSX??? I know they lost the Boston and Albany main to Pan Am but it could be possible for CSX to regain the line in this case, and maybe even go up north? (And regain their former Dash-8s? )

Pensyfan19, when did this happen? I had no idea that the CSX lost the Boston & Albany line to Pan Am.

It appears he does not realize there are two lines running west between Boston and the ALbany area. CSX got the former B&A with the Conrail break up. The other line is the former B&M Fitchburg Division which NS uses [as part of the Pan Am Southern arrangement] to get to Mechanicville Yard, and points further west such as Scranton [on the former D&H.

I stand corrected in that case. I am aware of the two main lines from Boston to Albany, the ex-B&M via Greenfield and the ex-NYC (Boston and Albany) via Springfield, but I thought I remembered hearing something about Pan-Am purchasing one of them from CSX within the past year(?) or few months. I might have misread that article. Sorry for the confusion.

They got rights to the CSX customers in the Boston area which both railroads physically can access. But no line was acquired from CSX.

CSX is not interested in the B&M nor would the STB allow it.

For the eastern end of the system, a 3rd party buyer / holding company is also a realistic possibility. I could see a group like Fortress taking Ayer/Portland-NMJ/Keag. They could call it something crazy and unique like..I don't know...Maine Central

I found an interesting article regarding this matter if anyone is interested.

https://www.railwayage.com/freight/shor ... annel=news

I hope Irving's New Brunswick Southern gets the line to Portland.

I think that would be great!!!

All the speculation on who might buy it, what if no one wants to buy it at all? And what if the part of the sale agreement is that the buyer has to buy the whole system?

That makes me wonder if the MBTA/MassDOT will buy any of PAR's trackage.

If it's not all sold as one part that opens up doors like that.

If Wick Moorman was still running NS , they would try to by Pan Am. Not this regime, I just don’t see it. I can see them selling the southern tier line to CN , trackage rights to Girard , PA to connect with their own line ( B&LE ) , selling to CN their half of the NYS&W and CP buys the D&H back for what they sold it for and/or a bit more, and gets the Pan Am. That gets NS out of the extreme northeast and NYS . Heavily traveled routes is what I think they are aiming for only