CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

The planned new thru track in the hill yard should help on that front

roberttosh wrote: ↑Sun Jun 27, 2021 11:32 am Gotta think that threading the needle through Hill yard and getting across PAS/B&E and MBTA through Ayer to get back onto home rails at I believe CP 312 is going to be a bigger headache.

With the the planned upgrades it will be a lot easier than it is now. A double tracking of the throat and switch upgrades will allow the IM train to enter the yard on the west wye, keeping it west of CPF-AY and no more backing in. Fluidity should be greatly improved. With double track west of CF 312 dispatching shouldn't be a major headache.

10 MPH on the "through track" vs 5 now will go a long way too. The time AYPO takes to get all out onto the main right now is just excruciating.

Maybe the PAS #2 main between the WL and WL East gets a speed bump too so they can use either iron more fluidly based on whether Sanvel or the Milling/Catagna is being worked.

There are lots of relatively minor things that can be done to shave time off that PAR does not care to do.

And presumably the IM will come up the Worcester route most of the time once the clearance and other improvements are done from delanson through VO and Worcester and Clinton to Ayer

Even with all the changes and upgrades the Hill Yard is still busy and will still be a slow stretch, and it still comes down to the East Wye and crossing commuter traffic. It will be an improvement over today, but as I previously indicated it's still going to be a slow 3-4 miles through the Hill until the tail end of the train clears off the East Wye.

F74265A wrote:Your ideal concept is exactly what I envision operationally. For some reason I thought B&M retained ownership of the east track. Many years ago GTI would park cars and small trains in that track behind green dale mall before it was disconnected. So the takeaway is that with $ and cooperation, things can be made operationally similar but no way to totally cut out PW dispatcher

Apparently Pan Am still owns some of the former yard property on that side of the ROW so they may still own something over there that I'm not as familiar with the details on. But the currently active pair of tracks below the Garden St. switch are all P&W.

Out of curiosity I took a look at the City Of Worcester property records and GIS map. The B&M shows as owning ten parcels in the city. Following the ROW, the owner of record for the real estate from Union Station to Barbers is the Boston & Maine with the exception of a couple of areas in the St Vincent Hospital area that is owned by VHS Acquisition Subsidiary of Kansas. The hospital appears to own the property with B&M having a ROW through the property. The property records show P&W real estate ownership beginning at the Gardner branch switch at St. Gobain. On the other end, New York Central LLC (CSX subsidiary) is the property owner of the B&A at Union Station. I am speculating that only the currently in use track from Union Station to the Gardner branch is owned by the P&W with the underlying real estate still owned by the B&M. Here is the link to the GIS map for anyone that wants to look around.

https://gis.worcesterma.gov/GPVPublic/Viewer.aspx

So they did what happened to the D&H up near Mohawk, where CP owns the railroad but the B&M still owns the land underneath everywhere.

That is just a weird arrangement. Perhaps then csx could build its own 2d eastern main from just above barbers to garden st.

Looks like they already doubletracked the yard throat at the top of the wye.

Right you are. Nice find.

On google maps there is additional recent track work evident. 3 tracks have clearly been rebuilt on the east side of the yard

Amtrak warns freight merger could derail its big plans to grow in New England

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/28/ ... w-england/

Passenger rail line is fighting the proposed merger of CSX and Pan Am, saying the deal could make it harder to add service from Boston to upstate New York, New Hampshire and Maine

Amtrak offers a promising vision for the future of train travel in New England. A new route connecting Concord, N.H., with Boston. Expanded service in Maine. More frequent trips between Albany and Boston that could be the makings of the long-awaited East-West Rail...

...But Amtrak points to something else that could derail this ambitious dream: the pending merger between freight railroad operators CSX and Pan Am.

I'm assuming that CSX is paying for these upgrades at Ayer but somewhat surprised they would be opening up the check book before the sale even gets approved?

Those yard changes were not related to the transaction.

Amtrak should share what they're smoking. By all means let's stick it to interstate commerce based on future hypothetical poor treatment on hypothetical passenger routes.

What prompted the yard improvements? In the 36 years I’ve been paying attention to the hill yard, capital investment there has been a rare thing.