CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

I’m assuming you mean Aggregate Industries next to to the Brandies/Roberts T stop? They haven’t had rail service for a long time. It’s a concrete place - they get everything trucked in - cement, aggregate, and sand. And of course concrete trucked out. They use quite a bit of material at busy times, I imagine given that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for rail unloading there they’d need frequent switches, and the obvious way for a siding to be laid out would mean South Street would be blocked and the switching would happen through the station.
I doubt it would ever happen. Although it would be fun to watch if it did.

johnpbarlow wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:22 am A bit OT but hopefully CSX makes the name "Pan American Railways" available for a truly North American RR to use - "Canadian Pacific Kansas City" RR is too clunky:

post1566472.html#p1566472

Hopefully not, the name should go into the proverbial dust bin for all time. It should have stayed with the airline.

From a dispatching perspective, is it easier now for CSX to move trains over the B&A with a mix of single iron with sidings and some double track out in the Berkshires with basically only freight trains moving over the line or would it be easier to have full double track with 10-12 commuter rail trains added into he mix? Even with double track, am thinking that having to schedule around the commuter rail trains would be more of a pain.

The former is easier.

newpylong wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 9:17 am
Hopefully not, the name should go into the proverbial dust bin for all time. It should have stayed with the airline.

But it is really appropriate for the CP/KSU merger:

Merriam Webster Dictionary Definition of pan -

1: all
2: involving all of a (specified) group or region - i.e. Pan-American

Then again there's this:

Definition of pan - British : TOILET

roberttosh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:12 am From a dispatching perspective, is it easier now for CSX to move trains over the B&A with a mix of single iron with sidings and some double track out in the Berkshires with basically only freight trains moving over the line or would it be easier to have full double track with 10-12 commuter rail trains added into he mix? Even with double track, am thinking that having to schedule around the commuter rail trains would be more of a pain.

Yeah but having the passenger agency buy you out and pay for a second track and free upgrades, that would be worth it.

It likely wouldn't be - they're not running enough volume to warrant it. All a deal with the devil would mean is they have to tiptoe around the shiny trains and not be able run what they want when they want.

Does anyone know what will become of the Pan Am engineering dept in Billerica...do you thing this work will be absorbed by the CSX Albany Division Engineering Office or to Jacksonville Chief Engineers Office?

The CP/KCS completely distracted me from this fun little transaction... VTrans posted a rebuttal today it’s on the STB site

Also-- this one is reallllllly interesting: https://dcms-external.s3.amazonaws.com/ ... 301796.pdf

All of the replies are very interesting. Only VTrans seems to really bring up the potential competition issues that could elevate the transaction to significant. The state legislator touched on it, our reps in Washington opted for the dictionary definition of "significant" rather than the STBs, and Mr. Bigda has some big dreams.

This isn't Dan Bigda's first effort at getting into the railroad industry, either. He's been involved with a couple of efforts at creating a railcar manufacturing company as well, although (as far as I know) those never came to fruition. If you are an ANR&P subscriber (or have access to their archive), run a search for his name in the older issues - it shows up more than a few times.

Only a week to go until we (possibly) find out what the STB things of the whole thing.

Help me understand. Is Dan Bigda basically saying he wants the sale of the NECR to be forced so that M4 can purchase it and maintain competition for G&W along the CT river lines?

That would be the same Dan Bigda who:
1) Was trying to re-establish the rail line from East Brookfield to North Brookfield, MA to do transloading of commodities already handled by Mass Central and P&W (Let's have everyone fight over the same Nickel.)
2) Was going to be in the "tank car manufacturing business" by opening up a factory in Springfield.
3) So now he thinks he has clout to force a sale of the NECR and then bid on said sale?
4) Never seems to have the Millions in Capital on hand (out of his own pockets) for any of these projects.
Yeah - I remember that guy.

He's on the PAR FB group from time to time, maybe he wants to be the next David Schwanke.

I wonder if he knows there is no money in bridge line RRs?