CSX Acquisition of Pan Am Railways

I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere in this forum, but I am wondering how the potential sale could impact TTX since Pan Am is one of the nine shareholders of the company.

CSX is already a shareholder, so I imagine there will be little effect. I assume their TTX share is part of the sale. The other possibility is the other 8 owners have to cash Mellon out. Curiously, there is no information on TTX's website about who their board members are. TTX has some kind of authorization through 2029 from the STB - I guess this is the equivalent of an anti-trust exemption.

I was going to guess that Mellon would have to cash his shares out, or would be required to transfer his shares to a different company. Which if that were the case, I imagine G&W due to the amount of cars they use.

Four days back on 3/25/22, I reported that I had seen a Q427 pass the Palmer live cam with a block of CP grain hoppers. Since then I have seen an NERAIL-posted photo of CP grain on the Ardent Mills loop and then I saw the Q427 of 3/28/22 passing through Palmer with 23 CP grain hoppers in its consist. I inquired on the CSX Albany Div FaceBook page as to where CSX and CP interchange this grain traffic (Albany, Buffalo, or Chicago) and was told that the empty CP grain hoppers from Q427 would be sent west out of Selkirk on Q367 bound for BRC's Clearing Yard in Chicago.

Net: I guess this explains why this CP grain traffic wasn't routed on the PAS "Northern Route" given it had run ~1,000 miles on CSX before it got to Selkirk. So the question remains: what future traffic will CP opt to interchange with PAS/G&W to use the vital Hoosac Tunnel ?

Rate division hand in hand with PSR -- Enough to make one wonder when CSXT is gonna suggest rerouting AMTK and future westerly T expansion over the B&E...
(Yes, I know 04-01 came early this year.)

The grain trains going via Worcester was due to the pool of available crews are better at Ayer than at Rotterdam Junction for the time being. Once the sale is approved, this traffic will mandated to go back to being routed over the West End of the B&M via the Pan Am Southern/Berkshire & Eastern. It was one of the conditions NS imposed. As for the train originating on CP out in western Canada, the unit grain train contract CSXT has with the big grain shippers requires the trains are interchanged at CHICAGO regardless of origin further out West. Depending on the type of grain being purchased determines the origin. Most of the grain trains for Ayer originate on the BNSF or UP. This CP origin train was a one-off exception.

Cosakita18 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:00 am There's also the IMT in Portland, which is small but is New England's only rail accessible container port, and is in an objectively ideal position geographically to capture container traffic bound for Montreal and / or upstate NY . A few upgrades and Portland could become a significant feeder port. That's got to factor in somehow.

I was driving down by the waterfront last fall and found that one of the "harbor side" grade crossings had been upgraded to gates. I am not sure exactly what they've done around there in the last couple of years, but those signals definitely didn't use to be there – I'd bet it was a crossbuck a few years ago.

There is a whole lot of construction in the area, both buildings and road improvements. The crossing was probably upgraded as part of it.

Getting close . . .

In accordance with 49 C.F.R. § 1180.4(e)(3), the Board’s decision would be issued no later than 90 days after the close of the record.” That means the CSX-Pan Am merger decision would be made no later than April 13 or 14, 2022.

I have this fear, hopefully unwarranted, that the opinionated/activist STB board will approve the CSX-Pan Am Railways acquisition but with an onerous condition about CSX disentangling itself from PAS ownership that none of the parties (other than CP perhaps) favor. And, if so, hopefully the deal won't die (or go to the courts) a la the attempted sale of CSX Montreal Secondary to CN a few years back when the STB stubbornly added a condition to preserve hypothetical future interchange competition at Syracuse. We shall soon see.

newpylong wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 11:47 am 4/14 is the due date, yep.

Actually, it is 4/21...if you look at the decisions on the STB website it says, "ORDERED THAT THE HEARING RECORD IN THESE PROCEEDINGS WILL REMAIN OPEN UNTIL JANAURY 21, 2022." Cut and pasted (including spelling error - ha).

Interesting they never updated the docket and timeline in the official documents. Usually it goes by the decision # and they are tedious about making revisions. Then again… they like us are just people and things do get overlooked…